"Bye, Setsuna-mama!" Hotaru called as she stepped out.

Setsuna looked up from the scrolls she'd been reading and taking note of. Lately she had been doing a lot of that, going over scrolls from Charon Castle and borrowing materials from the other castles.

"Have fun," she called back. "And wish Haru good luck for me!"

For all that Midori was considered an elite school by both people with and without relations to the school, it could also be rather easygoing, as seen in the case when Hotaru was permitted to go with Haru to Namimori Middle for the interschool competition.

"I told you Ms. Kobayashi would be all for it," Haru said, excited to have Hotaru with her today.

She hadn't been kidding. Haru and Ms. Tohoku redirected Hotaru to the vice principal who not only agreed to let her skip the rest of the school day in exchange for going to cheer on the gymnastics club, but actively encouraged it.

"Show school spirit and make sure our girls don't feel alienated on foreign territory!" had been Ms. Kobayashi's exact words, though Hotaru would have sworn on the names of her princesses that there had been a fire blazing behind the usually calm woman.

Hotaru hadn't dared tell the vice principal that they were still in the same town, that Namimori Middle was hardly foreign territory that would make them feel alienated.

The school was a lot quieter, without the athletic festival. All the students were in-class now, or at least not making a ruckus, and there were no audiences like there had been back then.

It figured that even the Namimori Junior High, infamous in the town for being loud, couldn't be that rambunctious every day.

Just when Hotaru thought that, the relative peace and calm shattered with the screams of a crying child.

Hotaru paused in confusion because that didn't sound right, but Haru's ears seemed to perk, and she dashed off much to the chagrin of the coach.

"Hey, Miura!"

"I'll go get her," she reassured the coach, and hurried after her.

"What are you doing?!" Haru shouted from behind the corner. Luckily, she hadn't gone that far. Hotaru turned to find a small clearing of space between buildings – where Takeshi, Tsuna and Gokudera were, along with a crying Lambo.

The latter was clearly the source of the unexpected sound at the school.

"Haru?! Hotaru-san?!" Tsuna's voice rose, flabbergasted. Hotaru waved. From behind, where he was crouching in front of a crying Lambo, Takeshi waved back. "What are you doing at our school?"

"Are you transferring in?" Gokudera asked – was that a cigarette between his lips?!

"Are you smoking?" Hotaru asked instead, despite knowing perfectly well that her eyes were working fine. No wonder he was the ear lobe, if he was exposing the 'boss' to the dangers of second-hand smoke. And at school, too.

He ignored her, but that was fine, she didn't want to really talk to the smoking ear lobe either.

"We're not transferring. I'm here for the interschool gymnastics competition," Haru explained, and while her volume had lowered, she was still glowering at the boys, furious.

"I'm here to cheer her on," Hotaru added, just in case they got the wrong idea and thought she was into gymnastics. Also, go Haru.

"And just when I find Tsuna-san he's making Lambo-chan cry!" Haru crossed the distance quickly to pick up Lambo. Hotaru hurried after her and peered at him. His left cheek was a bit red and starting to swell, as if he had been struck in the face.

Which . . . wasn't something any of them would do. An accident, maybe.

A flame sparked in Haru's eyes, and Lambo still crying in her arms she turned towards Tsuna and Gokudera – and Reborn, though Hotaru hadn't noticed him at first – to proclaim her fury and scold them. "Haru can't believe you made such an innocent child cry!"

"Actually . . ." Takeshi trailed off sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "That was me . . ."

Haru didn't hear him, too caught up in her indignation to the point where she had slipped into referring to herself by the third person again, but Hotaru saw the baseball glove lying around, Lambo's red, swelling cheek, and put the pieces together with her own past experiences offering reference. "You forgot to restrain yourself again, didn't you?"

Takeshi laughed, but he had a touch of embarrassment in his usual laugh.

"Think of it like a weapon," Hotaru suggested, because truly, if he ever ran into a monster, Takeshi could fight his way out with nothing but a baseball bat and some baseballs, but he couldn't do that or become a pro baseball player if he had a record for hurting people – however unintentional it was – with his pitches.

"Haru won't forgive anyone who bullies Lambo-chan!" Haru shouted in the back. "Even if it's Tsuna-san!"

They could deal with the misunderstanding later. Hotaru sorted out her priorities, and the one at the forefront currently was keeping Takeshi from getting a criminal record due to accidental assault with a baseball.

"It's a lot of power, so you have to wield it with responsibility and care." For the people he played against, Hotaru had little sympathy. They were baseball players, they had signed up to be on the team, they were clearly crazy for exercise, they could face the terrors that were Takeshi's pitches. As for Takeshi himself she could always fix up any issues that came up with his arm. Consider it as healing practice, as Minako had put it.

A booming sound cut Hotaru off and made her turn around in alarm. What she saw didn't help appease her shock, only multiplied it and added confusion.

Haru was holding – with her arms around his waist, up in the air as if she was presenting him to the sky – a young man who looked older than all of them, with dark wavy hair. The weight was too great for her, and Haru's knees buckled, landing a severe blow to a sensitive area for the man. He yelped and fell forwards onto his hands and knees, while Haru, balance lost, fell backwards.

"Um," Hotaru said, because she didn't really know what else to say. Are you alright? That looks like it hurt. Do you need to see a doctor?

"Hahi?! Who are you?!" Haru shrieked. Oh, that would have probably been a good one to ask, although now the question she wanted to know the answer to was why Haru had been holding him in the first place if she didn't know who he was.

The young man got up, lightly groaning in pain as he muttered something. His eyes landed on Haru, and he seemed to brighten. "It's been a while, younger Haru-san."

Haru's eyes landed on the young man's chest – which was unbuttoned – and she shrieked again, lashing out towards his face. "You pervert! I'll report you for public obscenity!"

"It's for fashion!" the young man cried out after he was slapped, but Haru was already squeezing her eyes shut and covering her burning cheeks.

Fashion? Hotaru looked closer. The cow-print shirt and the striped blazers, sure, he could pull that off, she supposed, and the slacks were the classic black, they were fine, but . . .

"With those shoes?" The words slipped out before she could think them through, looking at the slippers on his feet. They didn't match what he was wearing. Those slippers were the kind of shoes one wore around the house and never outside lest one become excommunicated from fashionable society by anyone with a pair of eyes. The dreaded slippers that went with absolutely nothing, only worked in hideous tandem with stretched-out sweatpants and sweat-stained undershirts. If he wanted to be fashion-conscious, he needed better priorities than just how many buttons were fastened on his shirt.

Takeshi burst into laughter and Hotaru realized she had said that louder than she intended. Luckily, no one else seemed to have heard her, but right now her so-called friend wasn't helping.

"Stop laughing," she said through gritted teeth.

He stopped laughing out loud, but he was still shaking silently and clutching at his stomach. Hotaru felt her cheeks burn and turned her eyes towards the wall of the school.

"Okay," wheezed Takeshi, after it was finally clear from his system. "I'm done – oh, hey."

He reached down to pick up a horn, similar in shape to that of a cow.

"You dropped your horn," he called to the young man, who looked worse for the wear. And she felt bad for saying that about his shoes, but at the same time, wasn't he taking the cow-theme a little too far? Horns? On top of the cow-print? Next he would be wearing cowboy boots. Those, though, would still be a better choice than the slippers he was wearing.

"Please just toss it over," said the young man feebly.

The light in Takeshi's eyes changed, and that wasn't a good sign.

"Wait-" she began, but it was too late.

"Here you go!" In perfect pitcher form – or what she assumed was perfect pitcher form – the horn became a projectile weapon and left Takeshi's hand to cut through the air and strike the young man on his forehead.

Hotaru winced. Maybe she should look into becoming a lawyer, to keep him from going to jail. She could probably manage that with her current grades, if she kept them up. "Takeshi."

"Sorry," he said immediately. It was nice that he realized what the problem was, but . . .

"Maybe say that to the person you just hit in the head, not me."

"Right. Sorry!"

The young man burst into tears. At least it didn't look like he was dead just yet.

Hotaru sighed. She literally only ever set foot on these school grounds to cheer for her friends. Was there something about the school that just brought down injuries for people inside?

Then Hotaru remembered that Namimori Middle School was basically Hibari Kyoya's base of operations and realized that was a very stupid question to be asking herself.

At this point, Hotaru only dropped by the realtors to see Granny. She had a near-zero expectation of actually finding Kawahira. Michiru and Haruka had given up a long time ago, and Setsuna asked, but more for the sake of something she wanted to inquire about for personal reasons which she didn't share with Hotaru.

Naturally he finally showed up when her expectations were so close to zero, they might as well have been.

"Hey, Hotaru-kun," Kawahira said, waving lazily from his slouched position on the sofa.

Hotaru blinked and rubbed her eyes. No, she wasn't seeing things. He was actually there, grinning behind the thick glasses he insisted on wearing.

"You!" she said, just a few notches short of being shouting volume.

"Me!" Kawahira agreed cheerfully. His clothes were clean and only marginally rumpled, but he had the slobby air of someone who just couldn't look put together, as usual. It was really him.

In that moment she stood at a crossroads. She could get angry at him for not being around, for avoiding her, for not giving her any word –

But, pointed out a dark part. What right did she have to demand anything from him? Because over the months with him avoiding her – avoiding Namimori – she thought that maybe now that she was no longer vulnerable Kawahira would have no reason to meet her anymore. That for all they had known each other as Kawahira Riku and Tomoe Hotaru, their other identities were too great in importance to let the comfortable friendship disappear like mist come the morning sun, as if it had never happened.

After all, if it weren't for those circumstances, they would never have even met and she wouldn't have ever known about him, with his refusal to meet Mamoru.

Some part of Hotaru's inner doubt must have shown on her face, because he rolled his eyes.

"Yes, I've been avoiding you," Kawahira said bluntly, answering a question she had been refraining from blurting out without any fanfare. "I could excuse myself and say I was busy – which I was, make no mistake about it, I'm disgustingly busy and I hate it – but I was avoiding you."

"It's okay," she answered automatically.

Kawahira reached out to flick her forehead. "No, it's not," he said when her reflexes forced her to blink. "You have the right to yell at me or something."

This was so much like back then that Hotaru felt a tightness in her chest. She had missed her parents, her life as a sailor guardian back when she had been under his care, but she had also missed him, and living with Granny. "'Or something'?"

"I don't know," Kawahira said, shrugging. "I'm bad with emotional expression and all that. Do you want to throw things at me?"

Hotaru shook her head.

"Must be cultural differences," Kawahira concluded. "In Italy or Spain angry women were likely to throw things like paperweights, plates and on one rather memorable occasion, a beehive at my head."

He didn't look like he was joking. "A beehive?"

"She liked honey, and we were honey hunting at the time," Kawahira said like it made sense. In a way it did because beehives were where honey came from, except no, it still didn't really make sense, what was she, a bear?

Her legs were starting to hurt. She took a seat in the sofa opposite of him as he yawned, mouth stretching open wide to the point where his face almost seemed to split in half. "Is that what you were busy with? Getting things thrown at your head?"

"I wish," Kawahira said with a frown, letting his eyes slide shut. "More like headhunting for something that might not even be needed if everything goes well, and dealing with the Illuminati. And money." He paused, then grumbled. "Honestly, I would have preferred honey hunting."

The latter was more an afterthought than anything, but this was more detail than he usually gave about what he was up to. Kawahira did look incredibly tired, though. If she put a bowl of ramen before him, he was likely to doze off and plant his face into the broth and noodles and suffocate in them, sleeping like the dead until he actually did die rather than eat them.

Hotaru made up her mind and got on her feet again. He opened one eye, a slit just to see what she was doing, but didn't turn his head as she walked past him. Granny always kept blankets in the room next to the main office, and that hadn't changed even after she moved out.

"Get some sleep," Hotaru told him, unfolding the blanket and draping it over his body. He didn't like sleeping in his room, always preferring to doze on one of the furniture in the parlor or the living room, and it was doubtful he wanted to move right now.

"No more questions?" he mumbled, eyes both shut again.

The first questions that came to mind were things like 'have you been eating' and 'are you alright', not anything about the Silver Millennium or the status of his willingness to contact Mamoru. Whatever questions she had been wanting to ask him before today weren't coming to the front of her mind right now, and they weren't important when Kawahira was blatantly displaying proof of his lacking self-care skills.

"Get some sleep," Hotaru repeated. It wasn't like there was an emergency, or something she needed to know immediately. She could wait.

Kawahira sighed, almost like a surrender.

"Tell you what," he said, eyes still closed. "Let the prince know. Even if he doesn't remember, if he can prove his resolve, I'll meet him and tell him everything he needs to know."

"Prove his resolve?" That was vague. Did he expect Mamoru to write a letter in his own blood, or sever a part of his body? "What do you mean?"

"Can't tell you more than that," he mumbled, words slurring together. Hotaru wondered if this would be considered taking advantage of his tiredness, if he was the one who offered it first. "Just that – if he proves it properly, I'll know."

Then he sighed and repeated his last words as if he wasn't sure whether he had actually said them already. "I'll know."

Hotaru decided he needed actual sleep before she could ask more questions. "I'll come back after you get some sleep."

Though his eyes were still shut, he made a shooing gesture at her with the hand wearing his usual plain ring. "Come back tomorrow. I should be free then."

Hotaru was at the door, sliding it shut, and she barely caught his words over the rough sound of the panel in the frame. "Thanks."

AN: After serious considerations of future careers in law to keep Takeshi from going to prison or getting a criminal record, Hotaru remembered she had to take Haru back for the competition. When she looked again the young man was gone and Lambo had stopped crying. They were about to part when Reborn made the boys go with her to cheer Haru on because it's not like they personally know anyone on the Namimori gymnastics club, what is this school loyalty you speak of? Haru placed second place.

Kawahira wasn't dealing with the actual Illuminati, just organizations that are a little shady and may or may not give flesh to those outlandish conspiracy theories. It's Kawahira.

You might notice that Kawahira never said why he changed his mind on avoiding Hotaru. Any guesses?

Also new banner on Heroes, wish me luck!

Sweet Dreams~