khr ain't mine

Thanks for the review BbuingHeaven :)

Here's the next chapter in the fic, after a long wait. I wasn't satisfied with the earlier iteration, so it took a while. But, here we go .｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ଘ( ᐛ ) ଓ+..｡*ﾟ+

Chapter 6

Freudian Logic

The trio resumed their journey to apprehend the scoundrel who decided to cheat his way through the system (even if one of them abetted the so-called scoundrel and only one of them was actually intent on doing the apprehending). Reborn took to exploring the school since it was a smaller, yet denser ground to search and would make detailed explorations more fruitful.

"The criminal would always return to their place of crime" - was the excuse he had given. Gokudera gave him a look like as if he was Lambo's long lost brother, which really ticked him off.

"Reborn-san... You truly are the world's greatest hitman. You've hardly known Lambo, yet it's like you've crawled into his skin with how accurate you're being."

Shoichi's face turned green at that as he commented, "I don't think Reborn-san would like that, Gokudera, given the state of the pumpkin..."

"Oh right, it's rotten from the inside, just like its owner-" Reborn scowled in disgust at the truth of the (pumpkin) matter. The bomber continued undisturbed,

"At least it's properly rotten. That cow brat did something right for once. That's some amount of detail for getting someone to substitute for him. Guess he likes you, Shoichi."

In that case, Reborn was perfectly fine being hated by the brat. Then the redhead commented,

"Puh-lease. If he really liked me that much, he'd give me the pumpkin head that he'd been preserving carefully in formic acid. It looks real ghastly you know? The kid won't even listen to me when I told him that that was how we preserve fetuses, not vegetables.

He should pickle it."

"Formic acid is the human version of pickling, you know?" the silverette shot back.

"Don't tell me you're the one who gave him that idea? You know if you want that pumpkin to last, you should mummify it or pickle it with salt, oil, vinegar and such."

"He's not going to eat it. If it smelled good, that brat would munch on it- and get a stomach ache. I'm not going to be his baby sitter."

"Don't tell me, it was for that petty reason that you didn't let him know you could preserve those pumpkins for much longer?"

"If he just wanted a pumpkin mask, he might as well make one from wood carvings, clay molding or even paper mache like any other craftsman. I might as well use this as an opportunity to see how a pumpkin turns out under different chemicals and conditions..."

"Seriously? I wonder why does Tsuna-san make you his babysitter if you go all Frankenstein on him?"

Reborn felt like Shoichi shouldn't be the voice of reason here if he was the one wearing the rotten pumpkin and writing tests. In fact after hearing what these two mad scientists were doing to this poor pumpkin, Reborn wanted to donate it to therapy or even to those PTSD sessions. It needs the counseling, and he can't believe that he would be giving that suggestion.

"I think you might want to detain Bovino, instead of debating on pumpkins" he said, becoming the spoilsport to spoil their discussion on the spoiled fruit

Reborn walked towards the infirmary, wondering how would the place which loved desecrate things model the one location that was meant to put things back to its order. He walked one step into the place and immediately retreated. That was a mad scientist's secret base!

Yamamoto saw the hitman near the door and holla'd at him, "Hey Reborn! Weird seeing you here. I thought you'd be as healthy as a horse, ahaha."

"Say, Yamamoto, I could understand the torn curtains-"

"I know right? I always told Gokudera to put away the gloves for his costume when he tries to pull the curtains- but that guy's so impatient that the claws tear it apart" - wait, so it wasn't decor?!

"Ok... What about the mannequin inside the infirmary?"

"The doc' wanted us to be very familiar with our inside self. He said, 'By knowing your own body's ins and outs to the very extreme, you can prevent injuries.'. I personally think he twisted Tsuna's words. I don't think that's what he meant when he advised him that Knowledge is power..."

"Why- Fine, leave that. What about the chaise lounge? Shouldn't that be in the counselor room?"

"Huh? Where would the doctor be if not in the infirmary room? Granted, he's doing a temp doctor, cos Shamal goes on frequent dates that only end in crashes and burns-"

"The chair is the doctor? Oh, I get it- it's a role?" Reborn inferred with confusion lilting his tone. Why a chair? Were the patients supposed to sit on the doctor and narrate their worries? It seems almost like a fetish - like that story he heard of a stalker mailing himself as an armchair to his target's house...

"It just turned out to be a chair you know? I'm pretty sure Mukuro would have told you this, but the roles we use aren't really voluntary, but something that was a consequence of circumstances." the jock seemed oddly serious about the statement, that the hitman filed that statement away. He asked the clown,

"Then why's he a chair?"

"Well, uh, he made really wild movements when treating his patients so I advised him to wear something like shock absorbers. But boxing gloves only fit a person's fists and can end up bolstering a punch right? So we made makeshift cushions around his fists, palms, feet, and legs- the main parts that crashed stuff...

Then we got into another issue. The cushions made him imbalanced by adding weights to those parts, by not covering the shoulders and chest. Gokudera told him that if he had to do this, he might as well make a cushion armor- like those old medieval armor knights.

He became the cushion edition of a straw doll... At that point, Hibari's comment drove the whole thing right off a cliff- "Why don't you become a chaise lounge? It'll even help with your training." -he said.

You know, you've literally to crawl around to move that way! We tried talking him out of it, but the initial difficulty with maneuvering inside a literal chair got his fighting spirit up and he stood up to the challenge... and the rest is history."

If Yamamoto looked tired after narrating that tale, Reborn was positively twitching by the end of it.

The infirmary door slammed open at that moment, and a booming voice came out of it as a chair rammed against the door frame as it bellowed over-enthusiastically,

"I see that you two look extremely tired! Come inside. I can lend an ear or two of your worries and we'll clear up your stormy skies and bring back some sunshine!"

'I would have shot my therapist if he thought of using this way to get me to lie on that damn chair' Reborn thought, partially mortified at the hot mess in front of him.

"It seems like Sasagawa-san's trying to get more integrated into his role so that he could show how serious he was with the whole mannequin advice." Yamamoto whispered into his ears.

"I'm Sasagawa Ryohei! I'm the doctor here, and I can help out with physiological as well as psychological issues! But before we can get started, I need to get information about you, to make sure you get the help you need Reborn!" The muffled sounds from the chair shouted boisterously and a small compartment open as 2 pills was spat out from it like a runaway cuckoo bird.

"Hand me the blue pill!" there were two pills- a red pill with 'blue' written as its label and a blue pill with 'red' as its label. The chair looked at him expectantly, as it seemed almost proud to accurately land those pills into the hitman's palms. It was certainly impressive, but...

''I see that sometimes the doctors are the ones that need to go to the looney ward. Or is it a nut cosplaying as a doctor?' Reborn looked at the pills and he brought out Leon and transformed him into a paint gun and popped a blue palette onto the red pill, making it blue. He threw the now blue on blue pill into the open slot.

"Oh! That's extreme! That's right. We're to make our own answers that can be the best approach to a problem! Yamamoto passed me the blue colored pill if you were curious."

"Ahaha, I didn't see that it read 'red' at that time." Yamamoto looked a bit sheepish.

"Come on in! I can make some tea so that you can get that peace I offered. Hibari showed me a bunch of tea that you can use to help with that!"

'I bet he gave you those so that you can take a chill pill...'

Yamamoto piped in, looking like he remembered what he was there for, "Sasagawa-senpai, Shoichi told me that he could add more additions into the chair by giving it those custom made professor glasses, a white lab coat, and a beard so that it makes people identify that you're a doctor-"

"No, don't worry. There's no way he can look more iconic than he does with that look." Reborn looked at the peppy chaise lounge at him with exasperation.

"Aww, Haru-chan's gonna be disappointed then."

Reborn pointedly ignored that remark and decided to follow the chair's back as it led them into the room.

When they went inside the infirmary, Sasagawa introduced him to the mannequin- biology room's anatomical human-like doll. It was a half human skin wearing and half muscled with all its organs showing monstrosity of a statue that was a great tool of education- and the stuff that played a starring role in a school's seven mysteries.

"This is Elizabeth. Shamal said that he wanted at least one woman in the infirmary at all times, so we got her!"

"She's the Yamamoto Nadeshiko of our school. There's no one purer than her and she hides nothing from anyone. Isn't she amazing? Especially in today's time where no one can trust each other.

In fact, she's so pure that even Shamal doesn't act fresh with her!" Yamamoto quipped amusedly. There was some truth in his words, no one could so magnificently expose all of their guts, muscles and all...

'Where do I start with this?!

If Shamal flirted with that, I'd personally put him out of his misery... I see that he still has some standards.'

"But he did blush when Kyoko-chan did a bit of makeup on Elizabeth-chan. She dolled her up amazingly, ahaha."

Shamal?! Don't you go there! That's not a door you should open!

"I told Shamal that he should accept all aspects of himself when he came for counseling after that." Ryohei spoke seriously. But Reborn would much appreciate it if they didn't encourage him to fall off the deep end. Everything had its own limits... Everything should be attempted in moderation.

"In fact, I think there are some people in school who actually ship them two as their OTP..." to which Reborn looked at Yamamoto with alarm and the other laughed it off.

'Please, let there not be a cult for necrophilia in this school...'

There was at least one silver lining here. Looks like the casanova's met his match.

"This place almost looks like a biology lab. Isn't it too messy here? Wouldn't the students get hurt?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that. They take traversing through the maze of chemical bottles, experiments, stored samples, fetuses and lab equipment as a trial of courage. It's like a coming of age ceremony. They've to reach Sasagawa-senpai before he moves towards them, topping shelves their way by doing that-"

"Doesn't that defeat the purpose of taking the role then?!"

"Don't worry Reborn! I've trained extremely to overcome that weakness! I can now glide through the gaps with ease!"

"Shoichi thought of countermeasures. What do you think is better, Reborn?

Making a crane game arcade in front of the infirmary to use a claw to lift the sofa to the entrance so that senpai can look at the patients?"

"Why is the doctor the prize to get some treatment around here?! Also, those crane games need you to pay up a huge amount of cash just to get the prize into the open slot.

You'd have a wrecked room by then, and the student would have given up on the doctor by then."

"I thought it was fine since I've heard people say that they want 'senpai to notice them~'

Gokudera said that it's a good way to get more demand for a doctor. He also said that the science and tech team could get more funds this way-

Wait, oops. I'm not supposed to have said that. Forget about that, ahaha...

Ahem, anyway. There was another proposal- make a chemical that acts like diet soda for the sofa and gets it to thin up to let senpai fit through narrow gaps-"

"I don't think you'd get anywhere fat-shaming a couch."

"Oh... Then we've got to make the next plan."

How about you, I don't know, scrap the couch role?!