"You guys like me?" Hide asked in amazement when he got to his classroom; his friends had fought off the crowd of Hide's newfound followers that had followed him up to his classroom and now his friends were surrounding him to give him even more praise.

"Heck yeah!" nodded a friend, "We're best friends with the guy that ran around town in his underwear! It was so awesome too!"

"I-It was?"

"Yeah, and here I thought you were just some plain old idiot!" laughed another friend.

"Plain..." Hide grimaced as he remembered that his normalcy had been officially ruined.

"Huh? Oh, sorry Sawada, I was just joking around!"

"Joking huh?" Hide sighed again in defeat and walked to his desk where he laid his head down.

"What's wrong with him?" he heard one of his friends whisper.

"Who knows, but he should be happy right? He did just gain instant popularity."

"Do we really have to be happy for him?" Hide's eyes widened and he felt himself paled when he heard this sentence.

"Yeah, he does get kinda annoying after awhile..."

"Hey you guys shut up!" a third friend interjected, Hide brightened a little at this until... "He's mega popular now, I also heard that he talked to Tanaka Megumi and Sakuraba even praised him! If we find a connection to Tanaka-chan without being beaten to a pulp by the captain of the boxing club, it's worth putting up with this loser's whining!"

He bit the bottom of his lip and stared at nothing but his desk now, he felt like someone had just punched him in the stomach and an awful feeling like he was about to throw up. This feeling was horrible, Hide needed to get out of this classroom as fast as he could. He shot up from his desk abruptly and started to exit the classroom at a brisk pace.

"Sawada-san, where are you going?" his 'friend' called after him.

"Um, the bathroom, I'm not feeling too good right now..." he said slightly shakily.

"Really? Then hurry back, class is about to start soon."

Hide took off and didn't look back at his now so-called 'friends', for some reason they had looked totally different than before. What was he supposed to do now? He was popular, but his friends didn't even like him to begin with. He felt like the walls were closing in, even though he managed to get outside without being caught by any of his new followers. He felt lost. He felt lonely. Hide was so lost in thought at this point that he didn't realize he had run into someone.

"Hey, watch i-oh, it's you," said the person he had run into.

Hide looked up and saw a giant figure with short, spiky, light-brown hair; the figure had bandages wrapped tightly around his hands and forearms, and scratches were on his arms. A band-aid was neatly placed over his right eyebrow were a cut could have been. The figure looked down at Hide slightly threateningly but held out one of its bandaged hands to the boy.

"S-Sakuraba Morita!" Hide yelped and scrambled to get away.

"Oh no you don't," Morita began, he reached with the outstretched hand he held out and grabbed Hide's shirt collar, "I heard about that thing you did, Megumi-chan told me about it."

"T-Tanaka-san?" Hide shivered under the glare and thought to himself, What a horrible day!

"Yeah, I was really impressed by it," the boxer said to Hide's surprise, "I'm not that good with words, and whenever people see me they always run away. When I heard that you ran around the town in your underwear, I thought that you were so cool! It was like you were making a statement to all of us first years about how we should start the school year by being true to ourselves!"

"Huh?" the boy paused and just nodded, "Yeah, s-sure..."

"I like you Sawada, we need more thinkers like you in the Boxing Club," Morita nodded in approval.

"Um, no thanks."

"What?"

"Weren't you going to ask me to join the Boxing Club? S-Sorry, but I'm not into sports."

Morita thought about this, which took a few seconds for him, before bursting out in laughter, "Hahaha! That's funny Sawada! You? In the Boxing Club?"

"You don't have to be blunt about it..."

"Sorry, sorry," Morita chuckled before realizing something, "But if you ran around the whole town, naked even, you must have good endurance. Maybe you're more fitted for the track team or something."

"That's a pretty good idea," said a squeaky voice, Hide turned around and saw Reborn sitting calmly on the window sill.

"REBORN!" he yelled in horror.

"What? What's a kid doing here?" the boxer asked and leaned towards Reborn, "Where are your parents kid?"

"A hitman doesn't need parents," Reborn stated.

Morita laughed at this while Hide yelled, "Reborn, I thought you left or something?"

"You thought wrong," the infant said and looked back to Morita, "Is this that Sakuraba-guy you were talking about? He doesn't seem that scary at all."

"Reborn!"

"Hey, do you want to join Hide's Family?"

"REBORN!" Hide hissed.

"A what?" Morita asked.

"I-It's nothing! It's just this online friend-thing!"

"It's the Mafia."

"Hahah! What a funny kid Sawada," the boxer cracked up at this, "You're an interesting guy Sawada, sure I'll be your friend!"

"Eh? You will?" Hide blinked, he had been expecting to get beaten up by Morita.

"Of course! As long as you promise to take care of Megumi-chan, I hear she's in your class," he said, "I've been taking care of her since elementary school, this is the first year where we aren't in the same class so I can't protect her from things."

"Uh, s-sure..."

"Okay, then I'll see you later Sawada!" Morita waved and left Hide right before the bell rang.

Reborn saw that Hide was just staring blankly at the situation in which he thought he was going to be killed in and dead-legged him. Before Hide could get up, Reborn jumped up and landed on his head.

"You're my student now, and my students aren't late to class," he stated calmly.

"F-Fine! Just get off my head!" Hide yelled and started to go to class.

He went into his classroom, for the first time got a disappointed look from his teacher for being late, sat down in his seat, and when lunch came around he decided not to sit with the people he normally sat with and ate in the courtyard where he saw Morita trying to ask for five yen he could borrow from a kid in front of a vending machine. The kid ran away screaming from the boxer, leaving whatever he had just bought at the bottom of the vending machine. Morita looked up and across the courtyard and saw that that Hide was watching this whole thing and waved to him slightly embarrassed, Hide waved back to him and took a sip of water from his water bottle.

"What happened to your admirers?" Reborn asked, Hide turned around and spat the water from his mouth. His tutor was dressed up as a potted plant.

"What's with that outfit!" he asked while wiping the water away.

"Its camouflage," the infant answered, "A hitman has no limit to his disguises."

This is ridiculous...Hide thought and covered his face with his hand.

"Your lack of family is what's ridiculous," said Reborn automatically.

"What?"

"I can read what's in your heart, remember? Anyways, you'll never be a successful Mafia Boss if you don't have a family, so far you only have one member-"

"Sakuraba-kun doesn't count!"

"Don't interrupt," Reborn threw some pointy pinecones at Hide.

"AGH!"

"Keep a look out for any good family members, that's your homework today," Reborn continued.

"Do home tutors even assign homework-ow!" Hide asked while picking pinecones out of his hair.

"Who knows."

"AREN'T YOU ONE!"

~8~

Meanwhile, on the other side of the courtyard, behind a tree, someone was watching them from afar. The person frowned when they saw Hide.

"Hmph, so that's the Twelfth Boss of the Great Vongola?" light-green eyes shot a glare towards Hide