Growing Up - 2
A/N: So I had an experience almost as bad as writer's block: a broken funny bone. Haha... no. I tried, though (in the chapter, I mean).
Disclaimer: I do not own KHR.
Ding-dong
"I'm coming!" Sawada Nana called out as she dropped her ladle to open the door.
In walked two teenage boys– one scowling and one smiling.
"Ah! Ohayo, Gokudera-kun, Yamamoto-kun! You're just in time for breakfast!"
"Ohayo, Sawada-sama!" Gokudera greeted his Juudaime's mom with a stiff 100 degree bow.
"Ohayo, Sawada-san!" Yamamoto opted for a more casual wave. "Is Tsuna awake?"
Gokudera immediately slapped a hand over his companion's mouth. "Shh! If he's still asleep, we don't want to wake him!" he whisper-shouted.
"Aah… sorry about that. But you were pretty loud yourself," Yamamoto whispered back, scratching the back of his head with an easy smile.
"Sh-shut up, Yakyuu-baka!" he shouted, disregarding his own command.
"Maa, don't worry! Tsu-kun's awake and he's learning to shave today!" Nana's eyes sparked with pride. "Tsu-kun's finally growing up!"
"Eh?" the two boys looked at each other, both mildly surprised. Tsuna hadn't started shaving yet?
They rushed up the stairs two at a time, determined to help their friend with this import stage of adolescence. Yamamoto called out a "Thanks, Sawada-san" to the figure retreating back into the kitchen while Gokudera was silent, mind running through a million and one scientific reasons why his boss hadn't started puberty yet, before settling on the one that made the most sense in his mind.
"I'm sorry Juudaime! It's all our fault!" When they arrived at the bathroom, Gokudera had immediately dived into a dogeza in front of Tsuna, professing his supposed incompetence.
"HIIEE?" Tsuna dropped the blade again, which he had just picked up moments before. "What do you mean, Gokudera-kun? What's your fault?" He kneeled down next to his friend to placate him. Tsuna tried to rationalize Gokudera's apology, but all he could think of was the swing-set his friend had decimated while having an explosives showdown with Lambo. "You didn't mean to break the swing-set the other day, right? It's all ok, just be more careful next time!"
At this, Gokudera's bows increased in both frequency and force. "Juudaime is so kind! But I'm sorry for that too!"
Tsuna's eyebrows scrunched tighter in puzzlement.
Yamamoto laughed, then seeing Tsuna's bewildered expression, added, "Maa, Gokudera, I think you're just confusing Tsuna more!"
Reborn jumped from the counter onto Yamamoto's shoulder. "You should explain, Gokudera. Maybe my dame-student can learn something from you."
Gokudera sprang up, green eyes flashing with fervor. "Yes! I will clear up everything to Juudaime as The Right-Hand Man!" He whipped out his glasses and an Expo marker and started drawing on the mirror.
"Because we caused you so much stress"– little stick people with scary grins– " your brain"– a pudding-like glob– "focused too much energy"– sparkles and something that looked suspiciously like exploding bunnies– "on managing the stress"– more scary grins– "we caused"– more stick people– "and never told your hypothalamus"– a dot in the glob– "to start to secrete"– a waterfall gushing out from the dot– "the luteinizing hormone-releasing hormones"– flying fish?– "that tell your pituitary glands"– another dot in the glob– "to secrete"–
"Aah! Gokudera-kun! Too much information! I don't understand!" Tsuna held out his hands as if to block the onslaught of big words.
"Haha," Yamamoto added, "I don't get it either!"
"Basically, it's all our fault for causing you stress!" Gokudera concluded, again in a 100 degree bow. He peered up through his hair, over the rims of his glasses, to gauge Tsuna's reaction.
However, instead of his beloved Juudaime's visage, he saw ominous strands of pink hair floating in front of his face. He immediately squeezed shut his eyes and dropped the marker to clutch his rumbling stomach. "A-aneki! What are you doing here?"
"I awoke to your rambling speech, so I figured Tsuna, and thus my dear Reborn-chan would be here as well." She lifted Reborn off of Yamamoto's shoulder and held him in her arms.
"Ciaossu, Bianchi! We're teaching Tsuna how to shave," Reborn greeted the new arrival.
"Ohayo, Bianchi-san!" Yamamoto smiled cheerily.
"Ohayo, Bianchi, but could you please cover part of your face?" Tsuna gestured at the cowering Gokudera.
"Ah, Hayato's just being weak. There's no need to worry about him." She cupped her brother cordially on the cheek. "And I'm taking Reborn down to breakfast with me." Hugging the arcobaleno tightly, she headed downstairs.
Reborn called back towards his students, a suspicious smile spreading across his face, "Remember what Maman said: 'Hurry down after you shave!' I don't want to see even a hint of facial hair when you come down." His words hung ominously in the air. For the time being though, he would leave the three to their own shenanigans, get a good meal in, then go and stir up more trouble when things start to quiet down. And that, he predicted, wouldn't be for a while.
Upstairs, Tsuna was trying to help soothe Gokudera's upset stomach while Yamamoto picked up the small blade.
"Hm? This is only the blade- where's the thingy that holds it?" Yamamoto asked in confusion. "Did the kid not give you one?"
Tsuna slapped his forehead– he hadn't noticed before Yamamoto pointed it out. "Reborn!" He cried out pitifully.
"Haha, maybe he accidentally took it with him. You should go and ask him for it," Yamamoto suggested.
Tsuna nodded, but his stomach churned at the idea. Reborn had definitely implied that he wouldn't be allowed downstairs until he had successfully shaved. But he couldn't do that without the whole razor.
"I-I can go get it for you, Juudaime!" Gokudera's well-meaninged offer was barely more than a strained whisper. He stood up on shaky legs and gave a feeble smile to Tsuna, who was watching him with concern.
"No, I'll go. After all, I'm the one who has to shave, right?" Reborn was going to beat him up anyway if he didn't go down soon enough, so better to get it over with quickly.
His two friends followed him to the top of the staircase. Tsuna bid them a morbid farewell, not sure if he'd make it back alive. He slowly descended the stairs, one step, then another. The fourth stair suddenly squeaked under his foot, momentarily distracting and therefore off-balancing Tsuna, who tumbled down the rest of the stairs.
Only to find himself face-planting against the upstairs wall within seconds.
"JUUDAIME! ARE YOU OK?" Gokudera cried in surprise when his boss came flying up the stairs straight into a wall.
"Tsuna! You're back quicker than we'd thought! Did you get it?" Yamamoto laughed, not finding the situation strange at all.
"Hmph."
The three turned to the source of the presumptuous sound.
"Yo, Kozou!" Yamamoto called out amicably.
Reborn smirked up at the boys from the bottom of the staircase, his Leon-gun still smoldering while it reverted back to its original form. "You missed some." Rubbing the area under his nose, he bounded back to the kitchen to resume his breakfast.
Gokudera, who by that time had regained most of the color to his face, turned to Tsuna and suggested, "Maybe your dad keeps an extra in the bathroom."
"Ah, good idea, Gokudera!" Yamamoto agreed, guiding the other two toward the bathroom, an arm slung around each friend.
"I wasn't talking to you, Baseball-freak!" Gokudera snapped.
Yamamoto just grinned.
Tsuna smiled at their bickering, glad that his friends were by his side to help. "Thanks guys."
It appeared that his gratitude came too soon, though, as a loud crash resounded from Tsuna's bedroom. When they went to check it out, Tsuna let out his infamous "HIIIEEE!" There were shards of glass everywhere while his books and homework had been scattered by the wind, landing all over the floor. In the middle of the mess was a sniffling black mop.
In an instant, the mop clung to Tsuna, loudly stuttering, "TSUNA! Re-re-reborn! and-and Hi-hi-hi-hiiiibari-san and-and BOOM! and-and biting and-and shaving-"
Shaving? The three looked at each other.
"and-and WAAAHHH!" Lambo's disjointed story quickly disintegrated into sobs. They couldn't really blame him though, because an encounter with Hibari was like a brush with death, enough to make a grown man quiver, but–
"Stop crying, you stupid cow! This is important! What did Hibari say about shaving?" Gokudera unmercifully shook the kid, but it was too late– Lambo had already passed out from the shock. With a "che," he threw the useless cow onto the bed– onto a spot without glass shards of course, because Juudaime would be sad if his youngest guardian got hurt.
"Huh? What's that?" Tsuna pointed at an object awkwardly protruding from Lambo's hair. It wasn't one of the toys he usually stuffed in there.
Yamamoto walked closer to examine. "Oh! It's a razor! Good job, Tsuna." He beamed at his friend.
"As expected of Juudaime!" Gokudera proclaimed proudly.
Tsuna blushed slightly– all he did was point it out; he still had no idea how it got there.
Meanwhile, Lambo twitched in his fitful sleep, reliving in his dreams– or nightmares, rather– the short encounter that had cost him years of his life.
The earlier explosion had sent him all the way to Namimori Middle School, where he just happened to crash land into the Disciplinary Office. Lambo, who had been wailing and cursing loudly at Reborn, suddenly went still as he felt a predatory aura behind him. Trembling, he turned around, only to see the devil incarnate.
Hibari was in the middle of shaving when he had heard a loud shattering sound from his office. Muttering under his breath about biting to death whichever herbivore dared disturb the peace of his school on an early Saturday morning, he stalked out the the bathroom, razor still in his hand. In the middle of his precious office was a sniveling boy– the annoying cow brat Sawada Tsunayoshi had taken in to be his lightning guardian. He was about to merely drop him out the window, considering that this boy belonged to the omnivore, but he his mind quickly changed.
Lambo couldn't help himself. Even the great Lambo-sama couldn't help but wet himself under the menacing glare of the head prefect. He had just barely made out an "I'll bite you to death for disrupting the peace and my shaving" before he was soaring through the air again– he didn't even know what had struck him.
Hibari, who had been momentarily blinded by anger and indignation when he saw the liquid dripping from the cow's pants onto his school's rug, didn't realize had he had done either at first. He didn't have his tonfas as he had thought– in fact, he didn't have anything in his hands. His frown deepened– his razor was gone too. He must have used it as a makeshift tonfa, only to have it get caught in the brat's hair. He shrugged. Now the omnivore owed him a razor– or a fight.
Lambo tossed and turned on the bed, the demonic face seared deep in his memory.
In the bathroom, Tsuna gulped as he eyed the razor that seemed to stare at him with gleaming silver eyes from the countertop.
"Maa, Tsuna! It's easily!" Yamamoto cheered on his friend.
Tsuna looked up at him, face radiant with hope. "Really? Can you show me?"
"Of course! That's what friends are for!" He gave Tsuna an encouraging smile, then proceeded with his explanation, hands gesturing wildly.
"You first squeeze a gyuup sized dollop of shaving cream into your hands," he grabbed the can, but didn't squeeze it, "then you spread it on your face like bloop bloop, smu smu. And you take the razor like this and go like bwoosh and you're done!" He had grabbed a toothbrush instead of the razor and looked like he was brushing teeth just below his nose.
Tsuna mentally slapped himself– in the spur of the moment, he had forgotten that Yamamoto's explanations were just as bad as Gokudera's. He offered a half-hearted smile, "Thanks, Yamamoto. I guess I'll try it."
Gokudera, who was investigating the razor– he himself used an electric razor at home– started his own explanation without preamble because he, after all, was The Right-Hand Man who was supposed to know all of the answers in order to help his boss in any and all situations. "For best results, you should spread a layer of cream .736 centimeters thick, then hold the razor so that the blade forms a 17.2 degree angle that slants 2.3 degrees to the left and move it across from left to right and up to down at a speed of .98 centimeters per second, then–"
"Ah, Gokudera-kun, it's ok, I'll figure it out," Tsuna quickly shushed his other friend before he gave him a headache.
He exhaled. Then he closely examined himself in the mirror for the first time that day: his so called "mustache" consisted of about ten hairs, each barely more than a hairbreadth in length. And Reborn was making such a deal out of this? It couldn't even be considered fuzz. He couldn't imagine what a real mustache would look on himself– his eyes were much too big. In fact, his whole face was too feminine to accommodate for such a manly feature. He sighed, knowing he was at the mercy of Reborn's every whim. Resigned to the fact, he reached for the can of shaving cream, deciding to just get it over with– but stopped. The back of his neck tingled.
"Mu-mukuro-kun?"
"Kufufu, let me help you, my little Tsunayoshi-kun."
"HIIIEEEE!"
A/N: So I still don't know anything about shaving- so expect all explanations to be somewhat to very wrong. And about the razor/blade issue they had: Reborn had given them one of the old, manual razors with disposable blades ('cuz he's Reborn) that are much more dangerous than the modern electric ones (can anyone tell me if you still need shaving cream for the electrical ones?)
But the puberty stuff was mostly right- but the lateness was more likely because either it runs in the family or from the physical (not emotional, as Gokudera was implying) stress- in case anyone was wondering
I think I'll conclude this with the next chapter... maybe? (Depends on whether I can figure out how to incorporate Ryohei or Hibari more)
Thank you all who read, faved, and followed. Special thanks to those who reviewed: I hope I didn't disappoint (too much)