Chapter 5.
"Brat, do as I say, and make Yamamoto a member of your family." Reborn commanded. He had to speed things up.
"What, why should I-" Shigeru yelled in pain. Reborn had kicked him.
"Would you stop bothering me! Go play your little mafia game with someone else, kiddo! I have better things to do than mess around with y-"
Reborn fired a shot. It missed Shigeru by mere millimeters.
Shigeru's knees wobbled, and then collapsed under him. It was a real bullet. Reborn had a real gun. He could have died.
Reborn looked at his student, and said quietly, "don't make me repeat myself."
Reborn knew that it was too early to pull the trigger. He had been observing the younger twin, and knew the teenager had temper issues. That temper would kick in soon and jeopardise what little progress they had made so far. But Reborn had no choice.
There was no time left.
"Oi Yamamoto, I have a problem."
"Anything I can help with?"
"Good Morning, Tsu-chan!"
Tsuna too, chirped a little good morning back to her mother. Today, was probably another start to a good day. Scratch that, it was probably going to be a good week. Nope, not even good, but the best week so far!
Why? Because Yamamoto-kun joined the Sawada household for breakfast for the third time yesterday. He had been coming since Monday, and after getting over the initial shock of seeing him at the dining table (in her teddy bear pyjama bottoms too, how embarrassing!), Tsuna had developed a permanent skip in her step for the rest of the day.
Even though her life was getting weirder and weirder by the minute, seeing Yamamoto-kun every morning, eating breakfast with him and occasionally talking to him (just saying a squeaky 'good morning Yamamoto-kun!') lifted her spirits and kept her from running away from school.
Just barely.
The weirdness had begun the moment she returned to school after her bout of flu. It started out like a normal day. She passed a parent's letter to the teacher, explaining her absence from school. She shuffled to her desk. She spaced out during lessons. She drew little squiggles on her textbook. The bell rang for break.
She took out her bento but before she even unwrapped it, some hot-headed blond slammed open the classroom door. It was a senior. He had his fist clenched and he yelled at the first guy he saw.
Poor Takahashi-kun, Tsuna thought.
Even though Takahashi-kun was right in front of him, the blond shouted with all his might, "Hey you! Where is Sawada! I extremely have to find the person called Sawada!"
Everyone could see her classmate flinch at the sheer volume of the statement before he answered nervously, "Shigeru-kun probably went to the field, sempai!"
"ALRIGHT, I'm going to find Sawada to the extreme!" And the blonde senior disappeared, still yelling at the top of his lungs.
There was a brief moment of silence. Then everyone in class started to talk at the same time.
"Who was that?"
"He was so fierce!"
"Wasn't that Kyoko-chan's brother?"
Wha-
"He's pretty scary."
"Yeah I almost had a heart attack when he stormed in like that!"
"Why did he want to find Shigeru-kun though?"
"Isn't it because he's dating Kyoko?"
"Shigeru's gonna be in trouble."
"No kidding, Sasagawa-sempai's the captain of the boxing club."
Tsuna's eyes got bigger and bigger. She couldn't stay here anymore. She had to check on Shigeru. What is it with sempais attacking her brother recently! Plus, that blond senior's the captain of the boxing club! He must be vicious! I hope Shigeru's alright...
That was the first strange event that took place. In the end, it seemed that Kyoko's brother had not gone to beat the crap out of her brother, but to give him a manly clap on the shoulder, and a thumbs-up. At least, that was what she saw from the second floor of the school building.
The second weird event happened while she was looking for her brother. Okay, not just then, it still happens every day during lunch break.
Gokudera-kun gave her a cup of hot chocolate.
And the next day. And the day after that.
On the first day, he marched up to her while she was walking back to class. Then, he muttered a gruff "Yo" and pushed the cup of hot chocolate into her hand. In return, Tsuna just gaped at him, and he strode past her.
The next day, Tsuna found the cup of hot chocolate on her desk after she came back from the toilet.
The same thing happened on the third day. So, Tsuna wrote him a thank-you note on a piece of post-it and pasted it on his desk. (while he was not around, of-course, and when nobody was looking, duh).
So began their little exchange of hot chocolates and post-its.
And so, for everyday of the past week, Tsuna walked to school with a flutter in her heart, and entered class with mixed feelings of awkwardness, expectation and a tinge of dread.
She did not know whether to say hi to Gokudera-kun, because he's being so nice to her, but she never seemed to catch his eye. Plus, she did not know if she could meet his gaze (Gokudera-kun is still so scary!).
What would she do if she went to class and there was no cup of hot chocolate in sight? She didn't know. She didn't want to find out.
Everyday, she eagerly looked forward to the hot chocolate, the symbol of her first sort-of-friendship. At the same time, she also dreaded the day all this would stop. After all, how long can such nice things last? Books always say that good things never last very long.
The third and final weird thing was about to take place in her life.
Poor Tsuna. The day started out like any normal day of that slightly abnormal week. She never saw it coming.
"Bye Mom!"
"Thanks for the great breakfast, Mrs Sawada!"
Tsuna waved a brief goodbye to her mom before catching up with her twin and Yamamoto-kun. They walked for a few minutes in silence before her twin abruptly slung an arm over her shoulder.
"So Tsuna, you know what's happening next week?"
Tsuna shook her head.
He cusped a hand over her ear and whispered excitedly, "The Tigers are going to hold auditions!"
Tsuna just stared at her twin. Shigeru slapped his palm over his face. "You don't know what I'm talking about do you?"
"The Tokyo Tiger Team? The third best team in Japan? Does that ring any bells?"
"Oh," realization dawned upon her, "the ones in your posters?"
"Yepp!"
"And the t-shirts?"
"Uh-huh!"
"And your pencil case?"
"On your pencil case, buddy?" Yamamoto grinned.
"Dude, don't judge me, you have a Giants towel at your place." Yamamoto just gave a sheepish grin.
"Anyway, Tsuna, do you know what this means for me? Twins are supposed to have telepathic abilities right?"
"Erm," Tsuna bit her lip, "you want to watch the auditions and get their autograph?"
She got a pointed look in return.
"No, I'm obviously going to go for the auditions, dummy-Tsuna. Then, after I join the team, I'll get autographs and photos with them!"
"He has our support, doesn't he, Tsuna-chan?"
Tsuna nodded happily, and sighed. Tsuna-chan...
"So, here's the plan-"
"Plan?"
"So that I can go for the auditions, duh."
"Can't you just tell Mom?"
"If it was just Mom, I wouldn't even be talking to you right now."
Tsuna knew that her face had I-don't-get-it written all over it when Shigeru sighed again.
Shigeru glanced left and right. Then, he whispered again, "because the baby keeps tabs on me. Like, he spies on me or-or something! It's so annoying! He knows everything. And I mean everything!"
"But I have to go for the audition! I doubt he would let me. He's always going on and on about that mafia game of his. He's determined to get Yamamoto involved too!"
Tsuna just blinked owlishly at him.
"Shigeru, the plan. We're already half-way to school." Yamamoto reminded.
"Oh, right right." Shigeru straightened, and continued with "so, Tsuna, the plan. I'll be sneaking off on Sunday night to Yamamoto's house. You'll tell Mom that you're going for...an excursion or something, for a month."
"But I'm not going on any excursion."
"It's a lie, duh."
Okay, Tsuna was completely lost. What was going on? She just stared at her twin's melodramatic antics as he went on and on about the importance of soccer...or something. He could be like that sometimes, Shigeru. All Tsuna had to do was wait for him to get to the point.
Ah, here it comes.
Shigeru had his serious look on.
"I know it's not going to be easy," he started, "but you've got to pretend to be me for one month."
Fifth chapter! Did you like it? Please leave a review, I would love to know your thoughts.
DISCLAIMER: Katekyo Hitman Reborn! and its characters don't belong to me. The only thing I can claim ownership over is the storyline.