Truly sorry for the late update! I'll correct any mistakes later.
…
Returning from his high vault with the added recoil of hardened Cloud flames striking equally strong Sky flames, he skidded to a halt, shoulders hunched, fists chest-level, and bent knees maintaining balance. His pulse raced, thrumming painfully, yet he forced the withheld breath to emit in a long, even puff of air, a cooling trickle of sweat sliding down from his nape to blend with the soft cotton of his shirt's collar; and, complying with the silent command, his heart ceased its palpitations into its usual languid state. A satiated smirk curled his lips. "You have improved, Sawada Tsunayoshi."
The deep titian-orange flame snapping like the wind gave a small twirl before diminishing into nothingness as Tsuna slumped heavily upon the ground's cold, metallic surface, panting for breath that would not arrive quickly enough to quench the burning in his throat. No, it's because you're injured… he grumbled internally. "I find that hard to believe, Kyouya—the one who has improved is you." He raised his fatigued gaze to meet Hibari's piercing stare. "Without your tonfa, your speed is frighteningly scary." As though Hibari's weapons developed from an asset to a mere restraint.
"'Frighteningly scary'?" he quoted, almost derisively, raising a delicate brow at the herbivorous descriptors.
Noting his mistake on the usage of language, Tsuna broke his eyes away from the energy-consuming effort of not withering under the Skylark's intense gaze and cleared his throat as a signal for a topic change: "How was the interview?" He internally laughed at the casualness of the question, debating whether Hibari would choose to impale him with a tonfa or ignore the query entirely with a disdainful scowl.
"Pointless inquiries," Hibari began, and Tsuna flinched, entertaining the thought of perhaps being able to miraculously muster enough strength to sprint away before Hibari could contemplate which sensitive point of flesh the latter wanted to pierce; then, astoundingly, "All those herbivores ever wish to know is absolutely everything about my personal life." Hibari's brow twitched with withheld aggravation. "And your tutor"—Tsuna realized with a small widening of the eyes Hibari was ranting, as surreal as it seemed (Tsuna wondered if the world had decided to stop in its twirling tracks)—"took it upon himself to—" Hibari halted, catching himself, and exhaled a self-vexed puff as he closed his eyes to level his temper, only to imperceptively flinch at the pain that flared by fault of the stretch his muscles' motions inflicted on his healing wound. His eyes blazed, the unwavering glint sharpening until Tsuna believed the silver glint would manifest into a dagger and stab him straight through.
Tsuna shakily gulped, cold sweat wilting his skin into clamminess. "I'll, ah…pretend I never asked anything." His fear subsided to be replaced with concern. "More importantly, are you alright?"
Perceptive as always—Hyper Intuition, was it? I envy the young Vongola.
He glowered, both at the question and the unwanted intruder.
"R-right, I won't ask again."
"Rokudou Mukuro." He had brought up the subject of the pineapple-haired man's stalking habits a few times to Tsuna—and was promptly being changed the course of his original reason for his 'surprise visit' at the Vongola Manner—and Reborn, who wholly ignored him in favour of sipping espresso. Something was up, and he did not like it at all, especially considering Rokudou Mukuro was his eternal nemesis and his personal space was intruded upon on nearly a daily basis.
Tsuna blinked. "Pardon…?"
Again with that. "Your concern and prying are not needed and should be withheld, Sawada Tsunayoshi," he advised with the demand of a dictator, his fingers flexing and unlacing like a reflexive yearning for metallic batons; "therefore, have this resilient leech cease its constant intrusions to my mind before I bite you both to death."
Oya, oya, how harsh.
His brow twitched, mouth curling down into a frown. "Now."
If this situation ever came across (and the brunet always sincerely hoped it would never come to this again), Tsuna recalled, Reborn had said, "Play it dumb." However, considering the Skylark's current (extremely) irate state, he chose the alternative that would potentially only earn him one mauling; preferably from neither Reborn nor Hibari, but that was wishful thinking leaning into the delusional side. Besides, such a tactic had already been overused and would only serve as further aggravation for the Skylark. "Mukuro keeps you 'company' for a reason, Kyouya." Ah, I am so dead…Goodbye, beautiful life!
Hibari's posture changed to that of arms crossed over his chest, patience draining but having enough to wait for further disclosure.
Tsuna knew that stance all too well; he gulped—the usual tactic had reached a dead-end, and now there was no way he was getting out of it even with a fight, which he was certain would come either way. His old ways were commencing to creep within once more as the desire to flee was becoming unbearable; a fight for himself he could never do, after all, no matter how many years passed. He eventually sighed, resigning, and motioned Hibari to take a seat (to which he was retorted, "Where exactly is a seat, Sawada Tsunayoshi?" Hibari complied, nonetheless, sitting himself a meter and a half away in the traditional manner, as close as he would ever come). "Mukuro," he called and immediately sensed the presence of the illusionist before a mist appeared and dissipated to reveal the aforementioned reclining on his arms colloquially and disturbingly too close to where Tsuna sat cross-legged.
"Long time no see, Kyouya," Mukuro practically purred in greeting, chuckling in self-amusement.
Hibari scowled at the obvious lie and the casual usage of his first name in return.
Tsuna sighed at the usual display of animosity between his Cloud and Mist Guardians, however concealed it was in Mukuro's case. "Several months ago," he revealed rather reluctantly, knowing Reborn will have his ass later for this, "we—Spanner, I should say—noticed someone had been reorganizing files; nothing major, of course, but concerning, nonetheless."
The lollipop clicked loudly in the concentrated silence against his molars as it shifted, rolling to allow more the absorption of the strawberry flavour. His chin was propped on his palm in casual boredom, eyes reflecting the light of the computer screen, the light flicking colours every so often, as he browsed through files to make certain all was in order and secure. Although seemingly disorganized, everything was categorized and encoded in a certain manner, a plan devised by the genius mind of Irie Shouichi. Therefore, when he found a group of files in a folder of little importance to the internal matters of the Vongola (housing and medical bills and the such, like that of a normal household to fool the police force) were organized meticulously in alphabetical and time-wise order, from Z to A and newest to oldest. No one in the Vongola cared about fastidious bills already done and over with (especially Sawada-kun, who was the one in charge of paying those seemingly endless piles of bills), he knew that much; so who could it have been? Surely, there was nothing to gain from messing around with household and medical bills, unless it was an evil plan to drive the Sky Guardian mad with even more paperwork or to attempt (attempt, for the bank account written down was an alias) to steal the notoriously large amount of wealth of the Vongola that was earned with an honest living by all Guardians by orders of Sawada Tsunayoshi himself. As impossible as it seemed, he asked it anyway, tone the usual, bored drawl: "Shouichi, have you been messing with the organization of the H&M folder's files?"
It took several times of the repetition of the same question to gain the attention of the redhead, for Irie was too immersed in whatever new project he had started some time ago, but, eventually, Irie responded, a perplexed brow rising, "No, I haven't; why? Has someone been messing around with them? I thought I already asked Mukuro-san to stop hacking into the system." And additionally gaining a badly churning stomach in return, of course, out of sheer nervousness of confronting the infamous second half of the Mist. He shuddered at the memory—those heterochromatic eyes glittering in amusement still gave him nightmares. "Although, I'm pretty sure even he has trouble breaking through, since we keep further tightening the system."
"Actually, about that, he broke in again." He rolled his lollipop, the spherical candy making his cheek stick out in the silhouette's shape, and glanced at the screen. "At least, I think he did."
"Of course, I hadn't," Mukuro defended, hand flamboyantly averting and expressing his innocence.
Tsuna pointedly side-glared at him, his sharp gaze proclaiming the illusionist wasn't off the hook for the previous times he was guilty of.
Mukuro merely shrugged, waving off the guilt being forced on him like the indifference undulating off him in thick currents.
Sighing heavily, he pinched the bridge of his nose. He's never going to learn, is he? "Either way, as I was saying…
"Some days later, after they immediately brought the matter up to me, we learned the IP address belonged to one of your servers, Kyouya."
Hibari recalled being questioned as to whether he had been 'fooling around with the H&M files' quite rudely by the even more rude and hot-tempered puppy that followed the brunet loyally around everywhere. "It wasn't me—I have no need for such pesky things," he responded, now and then.
Of course not, Tsuna mentally retorted, you make Kusakabe-san do all of that for you; I feel your pain, Kusakabe-san!
Somewhere in Japan, Kusakabe sneezed.
"Which we also know," Mukuro said and sighed, delicate brows furrowing slightly as he became irked with the topic already. "Let me make the long story short, Vongola:
"Whoever managed to hack into the system using that pesky—to use your words—"—for he always had trouble breaking through the security just to mess with the background of Hibari's personal laptop—"system of yours was also able to figure out the code of the Vongola's bank account using the alias, a feat that took even me a week to do; the little prick was able to do it in six days."
I really don't see much difference there, Mukuro…Is that something to be so irked about?
Mukuro huffed in unconcealed annoyance, leaning forth so the side of his face rested on the hand whose elbow rested on his knee, his piercings catching the light and glaring off the bright illumination of the totaled training room (by fault of the Sky and Cloud's relatively small spar). "He, or she, has been stealing incredible amounts of money—in cash, mind you, so we can't track it down at all unless Spanner-kun and Shouichi-kun pull off that little invention they are working on right now with some side-help from Giannini."
"The currency type it was extracted as?" He honestly could care less—rather, nothing at all—about what happened to the Vongola's wealth, but it was unacceptable his servers were being utilized indiscriminately—whoever was at fault deserved a painful, deathly biting he would be sure to exact.
As perceptive as always, never missing any detail, that Skylark. "Japanese yen, so we can narrow it down to Japan."
Tsuna perked up at the mention of the invention. "Wait; go back a bit. I didn't hear about that—the invention thing." Not that it should surprise him Mukuro knew before he did nor that Spanner and Shouichi were too immersed in what they were doing (as always) to notify him properly. "What are they making?"
"It's curious, really," Mukuro began in his vague ways, smiling secretively.
"Just spill it," Hibari snapped, his level of voice retaining as his tone darkened, an even more obscure shadow befalling his features.
"Oh, scary," Mukuro mocked, his scowl almost in equal of intensity; "I'm trembling all over."
"Enough," Tsuna intervened before the derisive words twisted into an uncontrolled, physical brawl for the umpteenth time, using the voice he reserved for occasions when Vongola Neo Primo was needed and not mere-and-somewhat-meek Sawada Tsunayoshi. "Both of you." He dragged his hand down his face, utterly exasperated and fatigued. "Can't ever have a peaceful rendezvous with you in the same room, can I?" he grumbled, just loud enough to be heard.
Mukuro and Hibari silently huffed in quite the callow manner, strangely utterly synchronized, something Tsuna had not seen in some very long years, reminding the brunet of his 'exciting' school days.
Once the tension had settled somewhat, Tsuna brought up again, "So, what are Spanner and Shouichi inventing? And what is the estimated time that it will be finished?"
Mukuro took his time to glare at Hibari for no particular reason, simply to ruffle the Skylark's feathers, which would have worked had not Tsuna cut him off amidst it by slapping him not so gently on the arm. Rubbing at the sore, tingling spot (a side of effect of residing in the murky chambers of Vendicare for some years), he unveiled, "A tracking device; 'll take about two weeks or so, the longest time for anything they have done so far. They are finding a way to turn Flames into dust to imbed them into a bill so the next time a withdrawal is made by our mysterious person we can use that to trace him or her down and potentially capture him or her and all, if not most, affiliates. Problem is the range at which it can be detected will be only as far as the near vicinity, barely reaching the radius of a small town. But if we are lucky—"
"It'll be facile to haunt down and bite the herbivore to death," Hibari finished, a satisfied smirk curling his lips.
An amused chuckle. "Exactly, dear Kyouya."
It was not till a few hours later, whilst Hibari went off to the scheduled modeling session with the famous model Kishin Ryouta (or something along those lines) Hibari had lately often been paired up with, Tsuna belatedly realized he managed to avoid the 'stalking' issue by a hair's breath.
…
Like the brilliance of cars' oil spilled in water, glittering dull rainbows, except the sparkle was more broken and an intense brightness that almost seemed to flare out like crackling flames under a gently blowing breeze, each of the seven colours more defined yet blending to maintain a perfect harmony. It sort of reminded him of those Flames, but such pure ones he had never witnessed—and to think Flames could be imbedded into money of all things was even more inconceivable.
"I'm happy 'n all you invited me out for lunch, but the hell 's up with this weird ass yen?" He was rather preoccupied with Kuroko being in possession of something could potentially have a connection to the Mafia; the underworld was notorious for utilizing Flames in a wide range, from tracking to fighting. He glared down at the seemingly innocent currency. The power of Flames was inconceivable, in the sense of being both incredible and unimaginable; it went beyond simple technology and delved deep into the nature of humans, acting on the impulse of emotions—much like his personality, he begrudgingly admitted—and becoming stronger, purer, the stronger the emotion, instead of being run on a synthetic, man-made power like electricity or nuclear power.
He heard stories of a group of eight whose Flames were beautiful—pure and transcendent beyond simple imagination; particularly the Flames of their leader, whose 'Determination' was spurred by the overwhelming sense to protect those precious, something he found to be utter bullshit; who in the Mafia could possibly have an untainted heart with all of the carnage that went about as casually as strolling down a sidewalk? Especially when there were bloodthirsty bastards like Hibari Kyouya who to the major public was a successful, all-rounder business man and had recently entered the entertainment world as a model of all things with a resounding boom thanks to all of the fangirls that seemed to have already plagued the guy but in the dark was the strongest Vongola Guardian (from the aforementioned group of eight, no less) whose body count was rumoured to be the highest in the entire history of the world, surpassing even the legendary First Cloud of the Vongola; although rich-and-pretty-boy Hibari Kyouya never bothered to cover up his actions at all and the media for the oddest of reasons (they seemed too afraid of the man, really) never took the care to publicize his bloody deeds either, as expected from someone affiliated with the Mafia, no bodies had actually ever been found.
Yet. He was gonna get that bastard's ass whether it killed him or not.
Kuroko reached down to snatch the yen bill from Kagami's hands, a scowl of sorts furrowing his brow in the slightest of slightest, nearly imperceptible. "Kagami-kun, please don't take others' things without permission." Then, in further thought upon inspection of their surroundings, "And please mind your language—there are some young children nearby." He slid a tray piled with at least twenty burgers in a neat pyramid (for the hamburgers fell otherwise) in front of Kagami, a vanilla shake for himself in his other hand. He sat himself across from the redhead, already sipping the delicious coolness of his shake, the same setting in Maji Burger for the past two—almost three—years, with the exception being the whole basketball club (they never gained or lost members, aside from their senpai graduating high school who they still saw on a regular basis) at once or a few at a time, along with some of their opponents from different schools (mostly his classmates from Teikou, particularly Kise and Aomine), joining them one evening and others not. They were expecting Kise, but, at the last minute, the blond cancelled on them, saying something or other about modeling with a newbie with an extremely tight schedule and who had a promising future in the entertainment world.
"Sorry," he apologized lightly in his gruff manner; Kagami hadn't improved much in that prospect in the last years, sadly. He quickly unwrapped a burger and promptly stuffed it in three bites into his mouth, his cheeks puffing up like a rodent; he swallowed without much mastication, his hand already reaching for a second burger as he regarded the idle way Kuroko peered down at the almost-imperceptibly-sparkling-rainbows yen (as strangely as it sounded and as cool as it looked) whilst enjoying the sweet shake supplementing him with something at least—it still bugged Kagami how little Kuroko ate, and, reminded of that, he slid a hamburger towards the other, receiving a nod in gratitude (not that Kagami bought it, either way). "Where did you get that? Present from your dad?" he asked around a mouth full of food, earning him a small yet politely harsh reprimand from the azure-haired.
"Yes." Suddenly self-conscious, he folded the currency neatly and placed it under the coat he had set aside, internally reminding himself of its location.
As vague and quiet as ever. He stuffed himself with the…He lost count already; and swallowed thickly, chugging down half of his soda to ease the food's path. "In a few weeks I'll be going back to America for a bit."
Kuroko merely blinked, showing no outward surprise over the suddenness of the subject, his azure eyes seemingly boring holes through Kagami, who shifted uncomfortably under the silently intense gaze, never quite used to the feel of being the sole attention of those astonishing clear irises. "Do you have an idea for how long? The Winter Cup is coming up soon."
"'S just for a few days—won't even miss school."
He hummed lowly as he took a small bite from his hamburger, chewing softly and slowly before swallowing with another sip of cold vanilla. "I don't mean to pry, but what is the occasion? I find it rather strange to leave to somewhere quite far and then return shortly after; I'd call that a waste of money."
Kagami flinched, a nervous sweat beading on the side of his face. His perceptibility is quite scary sometimes. "My, uhh…dad?" he lied quickly, coming up with the first excuse that popped into mind and cringing at his initial uncertainty; "The only time he'll be free this winter is during those two days because he is going an another business trip, so I'm taking that time to pay him a visit." Not exactly a lie and neither the truth; I call that a tainted truth…or a white lie. Which was it? He waited with abated breath for Kuroko's response, knowing he had never been properly able to lie to the shorter male. When Kuroko merely stared at him—god, that stare!—he shifted, extremely uncomfortable, and cleared his throat, changing the subject as casually as possible: "A-anyway, I can't believe we are on the last term of our last year; it ends on March, right?" He clenched his fist, an uncontrollably feral fire kindling in his chest. "I'll beat that Ahomine at the Winter Cup this time and shove it in his face who is the better player! Of course"—he scratched meekly his nape, smiling down at Kuroko—"I'd never be able to be a better player without the support of everyone as a team." His large hand landed on Kuroko's soft, light blue locks, ruffling them into a wild mess till he was gently slapped away with a "Please refrain from doing that, Kagami-kun; it's annoying" as the other settled his hair back into its proper state, inciting a laugh from the taller of the two. "I—no, we couldn't have made it without your basketball, Kuroko."
And there it was: that miniscule yet all precious smile curling those luscious lips.
The mood, however, was promptly ruined when Kuroko pointed towards an ambiguous space—"Look, a UFO, Kagami-kun."—and, stupidly, Kagami turned to peer behind him and, obviously finding nothing there and belatedly realizing he had been fooled, went back to scowl at Kuroko for tricking him so, only to find the mischievous bastard nowhere in sight—'misdirection'. Again.
"Fucking hell, Kuroko!" he shouted in English, startling the other customers of the restaurant. He said he was paying for me as well, but he just left my part of the bill and his own and ran off!
Out of breath, ghosts forming in quick puffs before him, he hunched over on his knees, attempting to calm his rapid heartbeats and sooth his burning lungs. Eventually regaining his composure but still panting slightly, he straightened, chuckling almost silently at his devious scheme; there was no way he could pay for the frightening amounts of food Kagami consumed on a daily basis, and he just so happened to have forgetten his wallet at home as he was rushing out that morning towards school—it was all Kise's idea, actually, with some of Kuroko's improvisations. Just as he turned to saunter towards the nearby park where he would await Kagami's arrival, he bumped nose-first against a person's chest. His immediate reaction was to apologize (for he was generally invisible to those not paying seriously close attention), but his words died in his throat upon meeting a glare unlike any other he had encountered.
A deep cerulean almost undistinguishable in the night from obsidian glowing a piercing silver, a delicate set of brows drawn down into an impeccable frown—something he found odd on such a pretty face, almost as though out of place—and mouth set into a grimace of sorts, as if the man was somehow pained by the light collision yet entirely undesiring to voice it. The fluffy-looking, dark locks of the man danced under the blowing wind, stirring a mellifluous scent. His glower was fluid, practiced, but intense and unwavering, striking a cold shiver from Kuroko akin to facing the unknown of the netherworld.
Swallowing down the fear wallowing in quiet trembles in his chest, Kuroko took some steps back to bow at the waist, apologizing, "I'm sorry for bumping into you, sir." He really had not seen or heard the man approaching at all, even when the snow littering completely over the sidewalks crunched loudly under every step. He stared up at the unmistakably handsome man as he released his bow, perplexed as to how he of all people could have missed someone perfectly within his range of perception. A sort of familiarity struck him as he studied the other: have I seen him somewhere before?
The man's head tilted slightly to the side, regarding him intently, confusion eventually dominating irritation. "You…" His voice was deep, a velvety baritone that seemed to flow like liquid. "Are you a phantom?" He paused, and a spark of recognition brightened his entrancing eyes. "You," he said, as if that one word could explain the existence of the universe.
Kuroko blinked, now extremely perplexed. "Pardon?"
He reached down to grip Kuroko's chin—the raw strength behind the simple gesture certain to present after their wake a purplish mark; and Kuroko grew weary of the obvious power rippling in the stranger's muscles, uncertainty beginning to eat away into paranoia, for no man should have so much force behind a simple action—and tilted the other's head from side to side at odd angles, scrutinizing so as if to not miss and record even the most minor detail. "Fragile body of a lesser state than a regular herbivore; strong, unwavering eyes of the fiercest carnivore." The man was talking nonsense now. "Yet neither and not an omnivore—strange, indeed, how that annoying herbivore that dared add 'cchi' so casually to my name had described." The man released him, a satiation of sorts glittering in his cerulean eyes. "You are Kuroko Tetsuya," he stated without question, entirely certain of his assumption, leaning into arrogance yet remaining bizarrely humble.
'Cchi'? Ah, could he be talking about Kise-kun? Kuroko stepped away from the man, startled. Is this man perhaps…my stalker? "How do you know Kise-kun?" And me, he added silently.
The stranger swished by him, the aura rumbling about him forcing a chill down Kuroko's back. "Ask that blond herbivore yourself."
He swiveled quickly on his heels and questioned, knowing this would be his grandest clue to commence the investigation entailing the origins of this extremely strange (mysterious, almost) stranger, "Please wait; your name?"
Those cerulean irises seemed to pierce through him, rooting him into the ground, robbing momentarily breath and forcing startled palpitations. "Hibari Kyouya."
And just like that, Kuroko's life ceased its normal course to be replaced with an erratic world thriving in the pleasures of the cursed Underworld.
