"Chav!" He smiled his shit-eating grin. "You…" He glared her down. "Why did you leave without telling us? Sensei almost beheaded me in fury!"
Smiling sheepishly, she backed up, hands held forward defensively. "Heh…about that…I didn't really have a choice!" She stepped on the heel of her own slipper as she scrambled backwards and gave a little scream as she fell. Before she hit the ground, Kozaburo caught her by the elbow and yanked her back upright.
"Still as clumsy as ever, eh?" He sighed. Chaviva ducked her head sheepishly.
"Oh, right! I wanted to ask, why are you here?" Kozaburo rummaged in his bag and brought out a letter.
"Apparently, some elite school over here noticed my talent in Wu Shu, and decided to drag me over from Japan on scholarship. My dad was really enthusiastic about it, so…" He shrugged nonchalantly. Chaviva glanced through the letter and immediately felt the urge to bash her head against a nearby wall. This…it's got Reborn written all over it, I swear. It's so painfully obvious. Kozaburo did not seem to notice her change in expression and continued, "Though why an Italian school would want a Chinese martial artist just boggles me." Of course it boggles you. It's not the school that wrote that letter. Or if it is, they were writing at gunpoint. Reborn's gunpoint.
"Give me a sec, Kozaburo." She dropped to Reborn's eye level. "Why did you just drag my friend all the way from Japan on a wild goose chase for a scholarship?" Reborn sighed in mock disappointment.
"Oh, how could you have so little trust in me? He really is going to be enrolled into the elite Italian school." Definitely gunpoint. "And I brought him here for you. He's going to be your Vongola Guardian of the Rain." Chaviva suddenly felt faint.
"Aside from the issue that you're randomly pulling people in to join my Famiglia, how the hell is he supposed to survive in an Italian school when he can't speak a word of Italian?" She hissed. Kozaburo glanced at her, puzzled by her agonized expression.
"You certainly can't make choices for your Famiglia, so I shall. Plus, he'll survive. He'll have a fellow sufferer, after all." Her heart sank as she glimpsed that infamous grin of his. "You're joining him in the academy. Can't have you leaving school at such a young age now, can we?"
"Somehow, going to school in plainclothes just feels plain awkward." Chaviva complained, tugging at the collar of her long-sleeved white shirt. To her, school and uniform had always come as a package. It felt strange to be attending lessons in jeans, shirt un-tucked and sleeves rolled up. Reborn perched on her shoulder, surprisingly light, especially in comparison with her 10-tonne bag. Now that was something inseparable from studying. The bag, not Reborn.
"Hey, boss!" She flinched and turned. Gavino was approaching at top speed. "On your way to school too, I see! I was overjoyed when Reborn told me we're in the same class!" She stopped in her tracks, causing him to overshoot a metre or two before backtracking hurriedly.
"Gavino…"
"Yeah?"
"If I'm not wrong, you're 19, aren't you."
"That's right!" Inside, he did a victory dance over the fact that she had remembered his age. He did so like rejoicing over the most menial things. Especially when they were related to his boss. On Chaviva's side, she was busy mourning the loss of yet another fragment of her sanity. If it had even existed in the first place.
"So…this is a class for age 15 to 16 we're talking about. Aren't you…a little old for a student?"
"Ah! No I'm not studying! I'm teaching! Italian and Math!" Chaviva nearly fainted on the spot.
"Aren't you a little young for a teacher?" He laughed, scratching his head bashfully.
"You're flattering me, boss. It's normal to complete two PhDs at my age in my family!"
"You have TWO. PhDs."
"Math and Philosophy!" He nodded emphatically. "I thought it was pretty pointless, but I don't regret it at all now! After all, it's giving me the opportunity to be with boss!"
Chaviva was about to run to a corner and weep at her inferiority when Kozaburo jogged up out of the blue and grabbed her arm, causing her to leap a foot in the air and lose ten years of her life. "Chav! If you don't hurry we're going to be late! Bell rings in five minutes! Run!" He barely missed being beheaded by the business end of Gavino's mace.
"Don't touch the boss! Name your intentions, or lose your life!" Gavino growled menacingly. Kozaburo's eyes narrowed and he reached for the glaive he always carried slung across his back.
"STOP! TIME OUT! HE'S MY FRIEND! COOL IT!" Chaviva waved her arms frantically, shoving her way between the two.
"Him?" They both looked quizzically at each other.
"In that case, hi! I'm Kozaburo, you?" Hostility erased from his demeanour in a split-second, Kozaburo held out his hand with a friendly grin. Gavino eyed him suspiciously for a moment before gingerly grasping the proffered limb.
"Only because boss says so," he muttered under his breath. Chaviva sighed. This is going to be a long day. A very, very long day.
"Sometimes people are so damn annoying I wonder what it'd be like to live a life of complete solitude." Chaviva grumbled to herself, throwing an arm over her eyes as she flopped down on her bed.
"You wouldn't survive a day." Reborn remarked calmly. Alarmed, she twisted to see him sprawled out on her pillow, fedora tilted forward over his eyes.
"How on earth did—oh never mind. I should give up asking such questions." A barrage of knocks on the door interrupted their conversation. "Who—?" Chaviva swung to her feet and trotted over to open the door. The familiar face of her mother greeted her.
"Hi Chav! We've moved in next door! They assigned us this suite of rooms opposite yours as the candidate's family, so if you need anything we're right here. We'll be supporting you during the fight, so do us proud! Bye!" As suddenly as she had arrived, she turned, cross the short space between their rooms and yanked the door shut behind her.
"O-kay…"
Perplexed, she stepped into the adjoining kitchen to make herself a pot of tea. Automatically, she added enough for Reborn as well.
"REBORN!" An overexcited female sprinted into the room, her hair a blazing banner of pink. Chaviva nearly dropped the fragile pot on the floor, catching it just centimetres before it hit the ground. She yelped as the heated porcelain scorched her hand, making her set the pot down with a clatter and clutch her hand in agony. Cursing loudly, she ran her hand under the tap, dousing the scald with cool water.
"Who the hell is that?" Mood thoroughly soured, she stormed out of the kitchen to be met with the reason for her annoyance, a curvy female slightly older than her that exuded sex appeal. Long, wavy fuchsia hair cascaded over her shoulders and down her back as she turned to fix her blue-eyed stare on Chaviva. She wore an expression of hatred that rivalled Chaviva's exasperation.
With a contemptuous snort, she spoke in a husky voice that Chaviva suspected drove men all over the world insane. "So this is the girl that has been gallivanting with Reborn." Turning to Reborn, who was lounging nonchalantly on Chaviva's bed, she continued in a simpering tone. "I don't see why you spend so much time with her, Reborn honey. I mean, this thing—her body's straighter than a ruler." Chaviva flushed, attacked where it hurt the most. Her greatest insecurity with her figure was her sheer lack of feminine curves. While her chest had developed satisfactorily, her waist to hip ratio was almost equal, giving her a child's straight, rectangular body.
"It's my job, Bianca." Déjà vu, Reborn thought, smirking to himself.
"Well excuse me if I'm not some incredible sex goddess. News flash: I don't give a damn! Now I think majority of the world's population wouldn't consider it normal to barge into someone's room and insult her. The exit's this way, if you couldn't find it." Thoroughly pissed, she stormed over and yanked open the room door.
"I'm not leaving without Reborn!" Bianca stood protectively between Chaviva and Reborn. Chaviva rolled her eyes. As if that devil of a man needed any form of protection.
"You can have him." She hissed back at Bianca. Reborn shook his head as Bianca looked at him hopefully.
"I can't abandon my job. I'm her mentor." Bianca's expression fell, then brightened.
"Shouldn't matter if she's dead, right?" Reborn chuckled.
"Now that's an interesting idea." Chaviva sputtered indignation.
"What kind of tutor are you?"
"Don't insult Reborn!" Bianca launched herself at Chaviva with an enraged cry. In one hand she held a…cupcake? Chaviva ducked and the pastry splattered onto the wall, which promptly began to corrode.
"Look here, bitch!" She leapt aside and the next cupcake spattered over one of her favourite books, lying on a nearby desk. She observed, horrified for a few moments. All at once, her frustration boiled up in a poisonous, violent, turbulent feeling.
"That's it. I'm going to kill you." Grabbing a nearby folder to bat away the poisonous projectiles, she charged at Bianca, took her raking fingers across her neck and kicked her in the stomach with all the accumulated anger in her. "That's for my wall." Swinging the rapidly disintegrating folder, she whacked Bianca across the side of the head. "For my book." She caught Bianca's swinging fist into her eye, and returned with a stinging slap to her cheek. Before Bianca could recover, she finished off by grabbing her shoulders and kneeing her in the sternum, hard. The breath whooshed out of her and Bianca stumbled back, heaving. "And that's for calling me straight. Get the hell out." Grabbing Bianca by the upper arm, she practically threw the girl out of the room and slammed the door, locking it. The door rattled violently as she battered it, screaming abuse at Chaviva. Breathing hard, Chaviva gingerly washed the bloody scratches on her neck, wincing as the water stung the raw skin.
"Your eye's turning black," Reborn observed calmly. She wanted to scream at him. Rather, she spoke with a calm that surprised even herself.
"Reborn."
"Yeah?"
"Could you at least keep your lovers under control?"
"She's not my lover. Besides, it's a family tradition." He chuckled at some private joke. "She sure resembles her grandmother." You, on the other hand, are quite different from Dame-Tsuna. "I want my tea." He reminded.
"Get it yourself." She muttered spitefully. Reborn cocked his gun with a click. Chaviva froze.
"You were saying?" Sighing, she made her way to the kitchen. Damn it all.
"Right away." Reborn revelled in that moment of triumphant joy he felt whenever he bullied his students. He settled back on Chaviva's bed.
Maybe they aren't so different after all. Somehow, he found that wildly amusing.
A/N: Happy Chinese New Year! Finally found the time to write this chapter. It's pretty flat though, focusing on the introduction of characters. Bear with me, there's a number more to introduce before the action kick-starts again with the succession's finals! : Looking forward to writing that. See you around! :D