Recap: Poor Azalya gets no peace. She's back in school, but everyone's giving her a hard time. Term end exams are right around the corner, friends are enemies in disguise, and rumors of love are afoot. It's junior high school life, mafia style.

(I've realized that I use the recap to make fun of my own series... I should call it "parody of the previous chapter"... Don't believe everything you read here...)


Chapter 11: A Change of Pace

"Cavallone!" Masato roared when he stormed out of the locker room and saw Azalya chatting on a bench between Tanaka and a first year. "What are you doin'? Being injured ain't an excuse to be lazy! You skipped a thousand practices last week!"

Shocked by the captain's bellow, Azalya nearly slid off the wooden bench. She broke off her conversation with Tanaka abruptly and faced the livid team captain with a wide-eyed and guiltless expression. "Captain, the batting cages are full."

Masato sputtered, rubbing his fist against the nest of short black hair sticking up from his head. "Well, kick them out!" he shouted imperiously.

The first year shook his had sadly and managed an embarrassed, apologetic smile for the hoards of terrified elementary schoolers milling around them. "Cap'n," he explained calmly, "we're just waitin' for our turn. Yamamoto-kun, Takeda, and Asakura-kun still got twenty minutes."

"Well," Masato replied immediately at his usual insane volume, "laps! 500 around the block!"

"Don't even bother pointing out he's making us run about ten miles in twenty minutes," Tanaka muttered to them as Masato took off at top speed (probably to find a batting cage he could bully from a six-year-old.) "Cap'n tried for a two minute mile last year. Collapsed and spent two days in the hospital."

Azalya rolled her eyes, reminded of a certain other sports extremist. "Captain wouldn't happen to be friends with Sasagawa-kun, would he?"

Tanaka snorted, throwing his shaggy head back. "Are you kidding me! That's a bromance if I ever saw one!"

"Um, Senpai," the innocent first year whose name Azalya hadn't heard said tentatively, "are we going to go run?"

"Uh… yeah, yeah, let's go—no, just leave your stuff," he said quickly. Under his breath, he groaned, "First years… So uptight."

Azalya punched Tanaka's shoulder encouragingly. "Cheer up. Don't sulk just because your team was creamed during P.E.—"

"WHAT!" Tanaka exploded, making a grab for Azalya's neck and missing. "You take that back!"

Laughing freely at the scandalized look of shock on the first year's face, Azalya dodged another attempt on her life and jogged backwards away from the fuming teen.

Tanaka, of course, gave chase, growling about how he was going to show his team's loss was nothing more than a fluke by disemboweling her.

The first year, obviously regretting his decision to join a club with such absurd seniors, followed miserably.


Twenty minutes later, Azalya had managed to lead Tanaka in an exhausting five-kilometer marathon that ended when Tanaka threw himself face down onto the batting center's fluffy lawn, coughing and wheezing. "Show—you—" he choked out, floundering around.

"Help me get him up?" Azalya requested of the other boy, whom they had lapped twice times and was less tired.

"Eh?" he panted. "Sure, Cavallone-senpai."

Somehow, each grabbing an arm and heaving him up, Azalya and the first year managed to drag Tanaka to their assigned cages. They dumped the drooling lump on the bench next to his bulky blue duffle, then turned to the cages.

Masato had already taken one, leaving only the two with Yamamoto and Asakura, another classmate.

"Heya!" Yamamoto grunted, taking a final swing and (of course) smashing the ball into the exact center of the homerun target. "Whew!" he exclaimed. "Thought that was gonna be a foul."

Asakura missed the last ball and swore. "Damn it, Yamamoto. Why don't you try not showing us all up?"

Yamamoto opened his mouth, probably to say something modest.

Just then, the P.A. system gave a loud screech like the kind in action movies right before a car crash. "Atteeeeention," a crackly voice announced far too enthusiastically, "our batting record has just been broken by player number seven"—they all glanced at the faded seven on the wire fence above Yamamoto's head—"with forty-seven straight homeruns, beating our previous record-holder by twelve! Yahooooo!"

Azalya winced as the speaker cut off with another wail of feedback. She couldn't say the statistic surprised her. It was scary, but it didn't surprise her. "Nice record," she congratulated as he walked up, carrying his baseball bat over the shoulder. "Not an even fifty?"

"Next time," he promised. "Maybe there's a prize."

"Name on a plaque?" she suggested. "Free membership?"

"That'd save the school some money, huh, if they didn't have to pay to send us? And we can only afford eight at a time…So you want it?" he asked, indicating the cage he'd just vacated. To the first year, he said, "You can take Asakura's."

Azalya nodded and grabbed her chipped wooden bat from under the bench. It was the school's actually, and she saw Yamamoto give her poor, abused bat a sad look.

"You want to use mine?" he offered generously, holding it out.

The ash was polished and new-looking, which was surprising considering the stress it'd endured with Yamamoto. Then again, he probably took better care of his baseball equipment than most Mafiosi did their guns. And if his bat was anything like her gun, he should have been loaning it out. "No, it's fine. Thanks, Yamamoto-kun."

Miraculously reenergized, Tanaka sat up and noticed Azalya putting on a helmet. He squawked, "What the hell is this? Bros before hoes, man!"

Azalya ignored him. She needed to focus if she wanted to hit a single ball one-handed.


"Atteeeention! A new record was just set or the most straight homeruns! Fifty by… player seven! Well, ain't that something."

The squeal over the P.A. made Tanaka jerk awake with a loud, unattractive snort. "Wha? What happened? Is it my turn?"

"No, practice is finally over," Azalya sighed. "You even slept through Captain shouting about a one thousand lap race."

She was next to him on the bench. Not in batting cage seven. Her homerun streak of the day stood at zero and counting backwards. Yamamoto had rotated in for the last thirty-minute session of the evening in Tanaka's place. When Masato's voice couldn't wake you, you were truly out cold.

"So what was that sound?" he asked, looking sleepily confused.

"That was the announcer saying Yamamoto just broke his own record with fifty homeruns."

"What!" Tanaka launched himself off the bench to dive bomb Yamamoto as he left the batting cage. "Man, you gotta share some of that insane skill with me! Is it hereditary?"

Yamamoto wiped his sweaty face on his jersey and stuffed the bat into his oversized red bag. "Dunno," he answered. "My old man learned kendo."

"Then your mom musta been a tomboy like Cavallone?" he bugged.

Azalya scowled at him. "I'm not a tomboy."

"Oh, sure," Tanaka drawled, turning back to her. "You're a girly girl who joined the baseball club."

"I was asked to," she said, folding her arms. She couldn't believe she was arguing about something so trivial.

Tanaka went on, "A girly girl wearing a jersey and trackies. A girly girl who takes P.E. with the guys. Speaking of which, where were you today?"

She shrugged. "With the girls. I assisted a trashcan goal."

"Okay, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"What are you doing?" Masato screamed at them as he zoomed past. "Cool down, one thousand laps! Get moving to infinity and beyond!"

The team's only first year trailed after the crazy captain loyally. He was the only one. He looked on the verge of tears.

Tanaka sighed deeply. "I wonder how many bottles of pocari Captain chugs a day." [1]

Azalya picked up her school bag and duffel, slinging the latter over her shoulder. It wasn't heavy, only containing her uniform, bat, and mitt, but felt like toppling over after such a long day. And she still had to suffer Tsuna. "An unhealthy amount, I would say," she muttered as she waved them goodbye.


Azalya hadn't gone more than a block from Namimori Batting Center when she realized with dread that her footfalls on the asphalt road didn't sound right. Or rather, that they weren't just her own. The sounds were mimicked from a distance of about five meters behind her. She knew it couldn't have been Masato. She'd passed him running in the other direction a few minutes ago. And the first year had surely fainted somewhere by now.

She turned cautiously and gripped her lumpy duffle bag, sharp blue eyes raking her surroundings. It was late, and the sun was on its way to setting, leaving enough light to see but not enough to feel safe. Then again, when had she ever? Azalya lowered her hand into the leather satchel, and her fingers wrapped around the warm rubber grip of a gun.

A rustle came from the wooded area off the road, followed by the sound of a twig cracking.

Most people would have written it off as a squirrel and simply turned up the volume on their iPods. Azalya tensed. She shifted position, careful to keep her injured arm angled away, spreading her concentration between the shivering bushes and faint sounds of bike traffic behind her.

A dark head of hair poked out of the bushes

"It's just me."

Relief made her laugh. "Yamamoto-kun," she said weakly, pulling her arm away. "You scared the crap out of me."

"Sorry. I didn't know you're so jumpy."

"Well…" Azalya glanced over her shoulder at the bushes, which were mercifully still. Maybe it had been a squirrel. She managed a small grin, one that lacked humor. "Things that go bump in the night, you know?"

He seemed to understand there was more to that than her joke, possibly due to his time with the mafia's dangers. "I'll walk you back," he offered, reaching for her duffle. "Where do you live?"

Azalya shifted her bag away from him. I'm actually on my way to Tsuna's. Her throat closed on those words rebelliously, as if it didn't want him to know. Which was a ridiculous thought. Azalya coughed quietly. "I'm actually on my way to Tsuna's," she told him. "I live down the other way, in the new complex past that sushi place."

"Hey, cool. I live in that sushi place. I didn't know we were so close."

She raised an eyebrow, realized that wasn't something she would normally do, and smiled awkwardly for a few seconds. To cover up that slipup, Azalya asked, "Why are you going this way, Yamamoto-kun?"

"I'm headin' to Tsuna's. Got a text from Reborn a couple minutes ago about chores… So, I'll walk you there?"

"Um," Azalya agreed with a half-nod, half-shrug. "I'm just going to, uh, tutor him," she blurted.

Another excited response: "Nice! You mind helping me? Amano-sensei'll murder me if I flunk another test."

"I don't mind," she agreed without thinking. Idiot! You're teaching Tsuna about GUNS. "Wait," she corrected hastily, "but, since you're busy today, maybe we can study during lunch break or something. We have practice in the afternoon, and Reborn wants me to come every night to help Tsuna. Anyways, I'm sure you aren't as stupid as…" She forced herself to stop. Chagrined by her pointless rambling, Azalya bit her bottom lip to keep from continuing.

Yamamoto didn't seem annoyed by her uncharacteristic chattering. On the contrary, he was smiling. Then again, he usually was.

Azalya was annoyed, though. Until then, she'd completely forgotten about watching the road. Any fifth grade bully could have taken them down while she was distracted. Who knew what lurked in Namimori's clean swept streets? Azalya resolved to be extra diligent in the future, especially since Dino was in the area. Unless he'd left without telling her.

Feeling worse than before, she peered down the side street before Tsuna's block as they passed it. Her eyes lingered on the lumpy, human-sized object lying on the bus stop's bench. It was already too dark to see clearly, but the unconscious homeless man didn't look like much of a threat.

Even as happy-go-lucky as Yamamoto was, he noticed her practically breaking her neck to send menacing glares at the drunk man as they moved away from the street. Sounding amused, he joked, "You expect someone to jump you? Look, we're already at Tsuna's house," Yamamoto said, as though she couldn't have seen that for herself, and pressed the doorbell.

"You can't be too careful in the mafia." She said this with just enough solemnity that it could be mistaken for sarcasm.

"And since Tsuna is the boss, we gotta be extra careful around his house," Yamamoto concluded sagely with a deep nod.

Startled, Azalya glanced his way and saw that his face was uncharacteristically serious, making him look less like a clueless teen. Were it anyone else, she'd have suspected she was being made fun of. It wasn't like Yamamoto to be cruel. Deciding to take his words at face value, Azalya added, "Dino is staying in Namimori this week." She didn't mention, though the complaints were dying to come out, that her boss had never taken his security seriously enough, and Tsuna's family (with the exception of the paranoid Gokudera) was the same way.

Yamamoto scratched his head. "Dino? He's... oh, I remember. Your boss, yeah? He sure loves this game, coming all the way from Italy to play with us." He looked down at her, away from the closed door, which he'd been staring at since she rang the doorbell. "You, too."

"I what?"

"You transferred from Italy for the mafia game, yeah? That's what I call serious dedication."

Azalya swallowed her contradiction. His frivolous interpretation of her life was hard to accept, but she preferred his illusion to reality. She wished it were a game, a sport to occupy her time during the day and then leave on the field before heading home. It wasn't though. The mafia was her life; it had never been anything less, never would be.

"Hey, you okay?"

"I'm going to be sick," she said. And she promptly was.

Yamamoto hovered as she doubled over puked her guts out onto Tsuna's mother's bushes. He picked up the bag, which she'd dropped in her haste to turn away. He laid a hand on her curved back. His voice was alarmed. "What's wrong?"

Can't he tell by looking? Azalya couldn't reply, though. Her stomach heaved again, but already empty, it only made her cough. Azalya spat in response, trying to clear her throat and mouth of the sour acid. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and her hand on her skirt. "I'm okay," she rasped, hating his worry.

The door opened then, and Tsuna yelped when he saw her bent over the front steps. "What's going-" his words were cut off by the sound of gurgling and choking, then the splatter of vomit hitting wooden floorboards. The throw up virus was dangerously contagious.

"Ack, Tsuna!" his mother yelled from inside the house. "Can't you at least do that in the bathroom? We're expecting guests, you know?"

"Kaa-san, the guests just puked in your yard," Tsuna called back, oblivious to Azalya's warning glare.

"This no good son, can't even look at puke without puking," they heard her complain before the woosh of running water drowned her out.

Azalya straightened, checking her uniform to make sure she hadn't accidentally gotten vomit on it. "Sorry," she said to Tsuna without meeting his eyes. She could feel her cheeks burning with humiliation. Despite the street lights, it was getting darker. Maybe they couldn't see how red her face was.

Tsuna did his best to look anywhere but her, what had formerly been their dinners, and Yamamoto. He winded up staring uneasily at her chin. "It's, ah, my mom'll clean it up, so..." He glanced down at the pool of vomit at his feet and clamped his hands over his mouth. He kicked the door shut and, presumably, ran for the bathroom.

"Guess we'll wait here," Yamamoto shrugged. "You wanna sit down?"

She sat on the steps, but it was more like she let her legs fold and the cement catch her. "Sorry," she apologized again.

They were downwind. He didn't say, "Whoa, what a stench" or suggest that they move. Maybe he didn't think she was capable of walking. "You should skip practice tomorrow," was his advice.

What does practice have to do with anything? she thought, not following.

"You shouldn't push yourself so hard—it's bad for your health." Though Yamamoto didn't say it aloud, Azalya suspected he'd followed that with You're still a girl, you know? in his mind.

"It isn't practice. It's... probably ate something," she lied.

"When I broke my arm, I didn't play for a month," he offered, clearly trying to make her feel better. "Cap'n let me manage the team for a bit, keep me involved, you know? We can ask him tomorrow if—"

"It's not about baseball!" she interrupted him. She realized she sounded too annoyed, too defensive, and forced a smile. "Just stress. I'll be fine tomorrow."

"You sure?" He sounded dubious.

"I'm sure," Azalya said firmly. Then she joked, "Don't worry about me. I'm pretty tough. The Cavallone Family doesn't accept weaklings." Unlike your Vongola, she added mentally.

He chuckled, as she'd known he would. "Sure. Your boss has good taste in family members."

She would have asked him what he meant by that, but then Tsuna's mom emerged from the back yard armed with a hose, and they scrambled away quickly from the jets of water cleaning the bushes.

"Why don't you guys go in through the back?" Tsuna's mom suggested nicely as she knocked the pink flowers off the poor bush.

"'Kay," Yamamoto agreed, ushering her towards the backyard. He still had a hold of her bag, and as he pushed her gently toward the screen door, she suddenly realized that his warm hand hadn't left the area between her shoulder blades.

Azalya gulped. Not because she felt like throwing up again, though there was some unexpected activity in her empty stomach. It was the way she'd once felt right before difficult assignments. A thrill. A buzz.

...Shit.


[1] Pocari is a sports drink. Think Gatorade or Red Bull. Personally, I can't stand them. Water for me!

Bahahaha~

Didn't I say I was going to update TSF next? FAIL. I fail at life... that's right. :/ Fail at writing, too. Is this a fail chapter? I sort of like it. I dunno if I'm going about it the right way, though. Do you have any suggestions/critiques/complaints? I dunno. So, I've never had a boyfriend, so I don't know what people actually do. I'm lame like that. I want to leave a couple of things open ended, but I don't know if it's working. Is it? What do you think about the direction this chapter is taking?

Thanks for reading, you awesome people! Increase your awesomeness by leaving some feedback, please -heart-

And for anyone that cares, I registered for classes this week! Wanna know my schedule?

Intro to anthropology, honors general chemistry (and lab), Spanish conversation and grammar, applied linear algebra, first year experience: mind, body, and spirit!
I can't wait! Anthropology sounds so interesting. Even though there's about 100 people in the class... I can't wait!