a/n= thank you for all the rates and reviews ^^ I really appreciated it.
Well some of you might dislike this chapter since I add a new plot device...I really hope some of you don't mind...
Please R&R ^^
Another week had passed since the boxing club incident. Ryohei had officially joined the Eight Grade Syndrome club to Tsuna's disbelief, and of course, Ryohei—who wasn't an eight-grade syndrome victim in particular—strangely able to fit in with the rest of the crew.
Well more like desperately trying to fit in…. (Without looking awkward.)
"Sawada!" Ryohei's raspy voice, as usual, filled the room with live. "Look at me! I am an eight-grade syndrome victim to the extreme!"
Tsuna, for the umpteenth time, lazily shifted his attention towards his upperclassmen, who was trying a bunch of cosplay sets from certain anime. He borrowed them all from Yamamoto, who mysteriously possessed all these kinds of stuffs.
Ryohei put on a straw hat and extended his arms as if it will stretch like a rubber band.
"Look Sawada! Are we going to seek for the One piece?"
Tsuna—trying to be polite—replied rather weakly, but smiling. "Of course, after we get to know the information of the organization…"
"Oh! Will the organization trying to get their hands on one piece as well?" Ryohei asked brightly, expecting an answer.
Tsuna sweat dropped, and timidly replied. "Umm….that is the reason why we're trying to find that out!"
"Well then, we don't have much time." Yamamoto's voice piped up—the raven-haired male was holding three swords—two swords on his scabbard and one leaned against his shoulder—Tsuna guessed he must've cosplaying Zorro…
Gokudera draped himself on the clubroom's couch, reading an alien-like comic book that was targeted for five-year-old brats. He mumbled darkly, frowning. "Cih…autistic fools."
Yamamoto innocently approached the silver haired teenager, and the baseball idiot shoved a huge toy box to the silveret, who looked at the item in disgust.
"What the hell is that?" Gokudera asked rudely, blowing his cigarette.
"Take one," Yamamoto skipped on the spot. "Take one costume!"
Gokudera got to his sitting position and tossed his comic. A vein popped up on his head. "You're kidding me! Don't put me in with your games, Yamamoto!"
Yamamoto, as usual, laughed. "Well then, you're the president of this club, after all." The baseball teenager rolled his eyes naughtily, smirking. "It's not like the president has anything better to do, isn't he?"
With that, Gokudera snatched a nearby table clock, and succumbed to a battle pose. The silveret let out a devilish grin, chuckling bitterly. "Alright then, as the president, I will test your eight-grade syndrome skills, Yamamoto Takeshi!"
Suddenly, Yamamoto's angelic expression swapped into devilish spirit, as if the male had dual personality inside him. Yamamoto's eyes were sharp, focusing on Gokudera. "Well then, I'm ready."
"Woah! A manly battle was going on to the extreme!" Ryohei's voice piped up on the background, and the white-haired senpai started cheering them with his 'Extreme' and other kinds of ear-deafening screams—which ended up ignored.
While Gokudera was rolling behind the sofa and holding the table clock in an alarming manner, Yamamoto was crouching behind the desk Tsuna was sitting in, peering towards Hayato's glare closely.
Tsuna, yawning, said dismissively. "Come on come on, attack each other."
Suddenly, Gokudera hopped from his hiding spot and lunged to Yamamoto, screaming. "Flame Arrow! Version 2!"
Of course, Gokudera never emit real flames, except Gokudera was making fire sound effects himself, which reminded Tsuna of the 'choo choo' train in Thomas and Friends.
Yamamoto grabbed a nearby broomstick and held it in front of him, resisting Gokudera's strong push.
"Your strength is spectacular, Minister Uma V," Yamamoto smiled in acknowledgement, eyes narrowing. "But it was only a matter of time before I, Generation XXI of the Yamamoto Guardian, take you down. For now, this is just a warm up."
"You don't have to remind me that, asshole." Gokudera smirked, obviously playing along.
As Yamamoto and Gokudera started filling the room with 'choo choo' noises and Jacky Chan or Bruce Lee martial arts sound effects, Tsuna slumped himself against the desk, and started nodding off…
This was the daily life of the Eight-grade syndrome club—he needed to remind himself.
To his surprise, Ryohei quietly settled himself beside the sleepy brunet, and he was holding something peculiar, a book? Tsuna never knew that Ryohei reads…
"Umm…onii-san?" Tsuna called him with the particular nickname Ryohei had proposed to him. "What is that book?"
"Beats me to the extreme," Ryohei craned his head, contemplating on it. "I just find it on the sofa turf-head sat before. It's not his comic book though…"
Indeed it wasn't. The book has a hardcover that reminds Tsuna of the thick-fat books of reprinted copies he saw on the bookstore. To his surprise, the book's cover was empty, and there was a small writing 'by Misty Pineapple' on the lower right.
Suddenly, a light bulb popped up into Tsuna's head, and a lightheaded feeling stirred up inside him. "Ah…I know this book…"
"What is it?" Ryohei leaned closer to the brunet, curious.
Tsuna's cheeks were flaring with excitement as he felt a new burst of energy fueled inside him—getting excited over a book that doesn't belong to him. The brunet replied brightly. "Misty Pineapple was a famous online author!"
"Oh, you mean like those stuffs called fanfictions that Kyoko read?" Ryohei asked.
Tsuna shook his head, smiling. "Nope, it's more than that. This book tells us how the world began, or in other words, reformation and revelation. Except…this was written for eight-grade syndrome victims."
"Oh?"
"So this Misty guy came up with a theory of how the world began, like 'The world was unified by seven magical pacifiers that belonged to Arcobalenos.' " Tsuna retold the story as if nostalgia slapped him in the face.
"Arcobaleno, such a unique name to the extreme." Ryohei commented thoughtfully.
"That itself tells us this Misty guy is a genius!" Tsuna squealed in excitement—fanboying? "Even though these are all fictions, Misty is able to make them all so believable to the extend that some eight-grade syndromes mistook it for a bible."
Ryohei chuckled, pointing at it. "How do you know about this Misty guy, Sawada?"
Tsuna paused, and in a moment, a rush of his childhood memories flooded into his mind. Tsuna casted a dramatic gaze to the ceiling, a small smile formed on his lips. "Well, when I was younger, I used to read Misty's online blogs, and that's how I got into eight grade syndrome."
When Tsuna was younger, the brunet will always hopped to his computer desk after school and looked up into Misty's blogs, instead of doing his homework. Tsuna was socially awkward, and he was often dragged in to bullies and mocking from his classmates. Because of that, the brunet had been living his life looking backwards—got discouraged because of his lack of social life, and his very low grades that caused people to called him 'Dame-Tsuna'...
But whenever he read Misty's blogs, all the harsh reality had vanished and he will be engaged into the world Misty had created in his blog. He remembered one quote…
"When evil had came to the world, the gods and angels desperately tried to get rid of it. Until one day, they sent the Bearer of the Flames, the warrior who will burn the world with the flames of justice."
Tsuna's eyes widened as the word from the computer screen reflected to his eyes. Then a hot feeling swarmed inside his chest; he will be this flame bearer…
Ever since then, Tsuna's 'delusional' reality had got in the way of his life and the brunet start behaving as if he was the flame bearer—reciting Misty's prophecies in public, using random objects as weapons and start speaking in sophisticated languages….which drove his parents crazy as he got older.
But Tsuna couldn't deny the fact that…
He was saved by eight-grade syndrome.
Gokudera and Yamamoto, who were his first friends he'd in his life, was by his side right now because of that symptom…
"Woah, I see," Ryohei snapped Tsuna out of his reverie. "So if I read this, can I get eight-grade syndrome too?"
Tsuna yelped, stunned. "Onii-san, shouldn't you be grateful for not getting that syndrome in the first place?"
"But I want to be a real man to the extreme!"
"Having eight-grade syndrome doesn't make you a real man!"
"Well by the way Sawada, is that your book?"
Tsuna halted, and his eyes slowly shifted towards the book. The brunet craned his head, flipping through the pages. "Now that you speak of it…does anyone leave it here?"
"Well, it doesn't belong to the octopus head or Takeshi," Ryohei added. "Doesn't belong to mine either."
"Yeah," Tsuna nodded in agreement, looking at the book thoughtfully.
"Does that mean it belongs to an outsider?" Gokudera's voice piped up in the conversation—it seemed like he's done with his eight-grade syndrome exercise.
"But who has eight-grade syndrome besides us?" Yamamoto added.
Then it was silence.
The four boys traded suspicious glances, but they momentarily shook their heads thoughtfully. An uneasy feeling burnt inside Tsuna, who was thinking that a suspicious outsider—no, it could be the organization, setting up a trap to the crew in order to find the owner of this book.
Then, someone knocked the door.
The boys' hearts skipped a beat, stunned. They mentally discussed who will opened the door through eye contact—Gokudera elbowed Yamamoto, and the raven haired immediately swayed the door opened with a smile.
"Good afternoon! Welcome to the eight grade syndrome club!" he said the name with pride.
Before them, a tall, bulky man with stick-like hair stood before them. In a flash, panic flooded into Yamamoto's face, turning his tanned face bleached white. It was none other than the Disciplinary Committee member, Tetsuya Kusakabe. Anyone would've noticed with his uniformed hairstyle, which served as a warning of trouble—it's the disciplinary president's right hand man after all, the stuck up, selfish Hibari Kyoya.
"H-Hello…" Yamamoto rubbed his head. "How can I help you?"
Surprisingly, Kusakabe bowed his head politely. "I'm sorry to intrude your afternoon peace, eight-grade syndrome club."
In an instant, the boys' edginess towards Hibari's right hand man vanished. Tsuna believed it was because his fearful boss wasn't by his side…
"It's fine sir!" Tsuna was the first one to answer him nervously.
"Kusakabe is fine." Kusakabe bowed again.
"Yes, Kusakabe…" Tsuna's voice trailed awkwardly. Boy, this man was very polite…
Kusakabe stride in to the room and turned to Tsuna. "Excuse me, have you seen a book?"
Tsuna immediately walked to his desk and handed it to the stick-haired man. "Ah! Is this the one you're looking for?"
Kusakabe took the book and held it fondly to his arms. "Thank you so much, I was afraid the book will get to the wrong hands…"
"Umm…" Tsuna spoke up. "Is that book belongs to you, Kusabe-san? If it was, where can I get it? Because as far as I know, Misty never releases a book, he only posted them online…"
Kusakabe looked taken aback for a second, eyes glowered. Afraid of Kusakabe's outburst, Tsuna regretted his question for a moment. Not to mention, his comrades behind him stood motionless, as if they were statues. Tsuna felt his heart stopped for a moment, and he couldn't even tell if his friends' were trying to held their own breath.
But then, a light smile formed on Kusakabe's lips. The right-hand man replied. "Nope, it belongs to the boss. Yes, you're right Misty only wrote his posts online, but the boss had written all of his journals into one book, and bind them to a hardcover. I assume this book was very important to the boss…"
Before Kusakabe could finish, Tsuna sweat dropped…
Wait! Wait! What does he meant when Hibari actually wrote all of the journals and make them into a personal book? Tsuna shifted his glance to his comrades and Kusakabe back and forth. Yamamoto, Gokudera and Ryohei were also left with dumbfounded expression, as if they had heard the world's end sentence.
"Umm…. can I ask one question?" Tsuna timidly asked Kusakabe.
"Yes, go ahead." Kusakabe nodded in acknowledgement.
"Does Hibari have eight-grade syndrome?"
Kusakabe rolled his eyes in shock, but then a small smile graced to his lips. "You're sharp aren't you, Sawada Tsunayoshi."