A/N: Raises hand guiltily. I didn't have much of a plan in mind when the boys swapped their rings. But I do have a plan for letting them have them. Laughs. Your reactions were amusing and inspiring though. ;)

25- School

"Tsu-kun! Byakuran-kun! Are you ready yet?!" Nana Sawada called up the stairs of her home.

"Coming~" Was the synchronised reply she received. She hummed to herself as she sauntered back to the kitchen to scoop out the eggs she had frying in the pan. One of the Cervello was in the process of, rather skilfully, chopping up some onions and briskly ditching them into the large pan of simmering pasta sauce. That would be packed into the boxes of pasta for the boys lunches.

Both women looked toward the door when they heard small feet clattering down the stairs and the usual high pitched 'hiieee' as Tsuna tripped over the same step again. Nana tutted gently as she walked to the door to see her son rubbing at a new bruise and pouting adorably. Byakuran was giggling from the stairs as he made his way down with more grace than Tsuna had. Nana bent down to retrieve her fallen son and straighten out the new school uniform. He hadn't even made it to school yet and he was messing it up. She redid the crooked tie and turned to gesture for Byakuran so she could do the same for him. Both boys endured the fussing admirably, albeit with blushes as she kissed them each on the forehead.

After the usual satisfying breakfast from Nana, Tsuna and Byakuran both ran out of the house with barely contained excitement as they waved to Nana and Auntie Cervello. It was, of course, their first day of school!

"Ne, Bya-kun, how big do you think school is?" Tsuna asked as they trotted along the pathway.

"Hmm, it has to be really big!" Byakuran gestured animatedly with his hands in emphasis. "We used to walk past the building all the time when we went to kindergarten, remember?"

"Oh! The big building?"

"Yep!"

The two boys automatically took each others hands as they got to a zebra crossing, making sure to look left and right and left again before walking across. This was their first time going to school alone (or going to school at all actually) but both knew that there was at least one Autie Cervello keeping an eye on them. Byakuran, because he knew his aunts, and Tsuna, because of his intuition. It wasn't like they were going to allow something like last time's 'incident' to happen again. Both had long ago accepted that it was normal and went with it.

"Do you think Hibari-san will also be there?" Tsuna asked.

Byakuran hummed before grinning. "If we see him, lets give him a big hug and play tag!" Which essentially meant that they would attempt to sneak up on the prefect to hug him before he turned on them and they would have to run away very very fast or be hit by tonfa. Tsuna had become used to the prefect's scary glower, in fact he thought it was funny -which was suspiciously like how Byakuran thought.

"Now, children, I know this is your first day, but it is also your first day of real school! So we have to get some work done, okay?" The teacher said before turning to write some simple arithmetic on the board as she explained it. Tsuna furrowed his brow, he never really liked numbers. Having more symbols added did not help. For the young brunet, it was easy to lose concentration and instead go back to examining his new class. The walls were less full of colourful, albeit crudely, drawn pictures. There were plenty of bright posters showing numbers, times tables and such though.

As for his classmates, there were a few he recognised from his old class, both bullies and others he never had much to do with. Yamanoto Takeshi was over there, laughing it up with some of the other boys. Mochida Kensuke, one of his old bullies who, ever since an unfortunate incident of being stuck at the bottom of a well, had ceased bullying him, was whispering conspiratorially with some other boys. Tsuna caught his eye and the brunet resisted the urge to cower away, Bya-kun was with him, and Bya-kun wasn't scared nor cowardly. Besides, Mochida's glower couldn't hold a candle to Hibari's most scariest one.

"Tsu-chan." A whisper came from beside him. Tsuna turned, "wha-" and got a mouthful of marshmallow. Byakuran snickered before leaning close and whispering into his friend's ear, "let's sneak out and find our skylark after this!"

Tsuna just nodded silently, chewing on the sweet in his mouth.

Needless to say, Hibari was not pleased to be -almost- jumped on by two boys a year younger than him. Their game of 'tag' made many fear for the two boys lives and wonder if they were sane as Byakuran and Tsuna just laughed and ran away like it was normal to be chased by the most bloodthirsty child in the school. Kusakabe Tetsuya could only rub his temples in exasperation as destruction ensued, Hibari-san* would not be pleased to get the repair bills.

*Tetsuya refers to Hibari as Kyo-san. So of course the actual 'Hibari-san' here refers to Hibari's mother.

R&R!