Chapter 3: Backyard Trouble

Miki rolled over on her bed half awake when she heard a knock on the door. If she remembered correctly, it was still a weekend. Who dare wake her up so early on a Sunday morning?

As the knocking got louder, Miki reluctantly sat up on her bed. Opening her eyes and seeing the surroundings around her, Miki remembered where she was. She was staying at Hibari's place. So, the person who was knocking at the door had to be…

Miki was now fully awake as she dashed for the door, unlocked it and opened it. Sure enough, Hibari was standing in front of the door still dress in his black pajamas.

"Go make some breakfast," he commanded. "It better be ready when I get down there or you know what will happen," Hibari didn't fail to add a threat at the end of his order.

Miki nodded, reluctantly accepting her early morning job. She watched as Hibari yawned and walked back down the hall to re enter his room.

So he came out to give her orders then just went back to sleep? This guy was really used to people doing things for him. How spoiled.

Remembering what Hibari said about finishing breakfast before he got ready, Miki closed to door and rushed to get herself ready for the day before going downstairs.

Once she was in the kitchen, Miki yanked the refrigerator opened and searched through the food that was in there. She didn't know when Hibari was going to come down. It could be in a hour or in just a few minutes. So, she decided to make something fast and easy. She grabbed a loaf of bread and a couple of eggs to make toast and fried eggs.

Just as she finished frying the eggs, Hibari's footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs. Placing the eggs onto a plate and taking the bread out of the toaster, she rushed to place to food on the table next to the yam and butter before rushing back to pour the coffee and placing it on the table just as Hibari sat down.

Miki watched nervously as Hibari stuff some of the fried eggs into his mouth. Apparently satisfied with his simple breakfast, Hibari kept on eating in silence.

Miki let out a sigh of relief, before going back to the kitchen to prepare her own breakfast. She then walked over to the very far end of the table and sat down. She didn't want to get too close to Hibari and she suspected that he would prefer to have his own space. Miki quietly and carefully ate her breakfast, not wanting to disturb Hibari's peace with any chewing noise or the clanking of silverware against her plate.

The silence made Miki felt awkward, but she didn't how to loosen up the atmosphere, nor was she going to try. If she made a wrong move, the person sitting at the other end of the table surely wouldn't let her go peacefully.

Miki fidgeted in her seat and then looked at Hibari who was intent on finishing his breakfast. She couldn't help but notice how handsome he was. If he just would fix that attitude of his and get rid of the dark scary aura around him, girls would flock at the sight of him.

Miki continued to stare at Hibari and took mental notes on his appearance. She glanced at his neatly arranged black hair and wondered how soft it was. It might depend on what shampoo brand he used though. She then took a sip of her orange juice and allowed her eyes to make their way down his face from his prefect eyebrows that sat above his beautiful eyes, to his perfect nose, to his thin lips and then she noticed his smooth white skin. She wondered how soft his skin would feel if she poked it.

Miki suddenly choked on her orange juice when she fully realized what she was doing. This was the man who practically ruined her peaceful normal life! What was she thinking!?

"Hehe," she gave Hibari a sheepish smile when she noticed that he was staring at her strangely.

"Weirdo," Hibari muttered, before shifting his attention back to his plate.

Miki sighed again and also went back to eating her food.

When the both of them were finished eating, Miki took the dishes to wash.

"Do the laundry next," Hibari said, kicking a basketful of clothes into the kitchen as Miki just finished washing the dishes. "Put them in the washing machine and then hang them up on the clothes line outside in the backyard.

Hibari watched as Miki picked up the basket and headed for the room that contained the washing machine. When Miki was out of sight, Hibari went upstairs to his room. Opening it, he went straight to his desk and sat down in front of a pile of paper. Grabbing a pen that was sitting around, Hibari opened a folder and started to read through the content and scribbled something down on another piece of paper. Who ever said that his job as the Head of the Disciplinary Committee was to only beat people up as punishment? There was also paper work to do. Lots of it.

Hibari frowned as he made his way through the stacks of paper. He had to admit that doing the paper work was a bit tedious. Patrolling the school and beating up whoever broke the rules was much more enjoying than this.

As Hibari continued with his work, he opened up a folder that contained the application for a new student. Hibari paused for a moment before setting the folder aside and going through a different stack of paper until he found what he wanted. Pulling out a blank student application form, Hibari started filling it out.

Miki was in her room writing in her journal since to her thankfulness and surprise, Hibari told her that she didn't have to clean the house on Sunday. This at least gave her more time to herself. She looked up at the clock in her room and seeing how much time has passed, decided to go back downstairs to check on the laundry.

Miki entered the room and seeing that the clothes were done, got the basket that was nearby and placed the clothes from the washing machine into it. She then headed outside with the basket in her arms. Miki then started to hang Hibari's clothes on the clothes line. The wind was pretty strong that morning. She hope that none of the clothes would get blown away.

Most of his clothes were school uniform. She wondered how many of them he had. There were a few t-shirts. Most of them were black, white or some other dark color. Hibari seemed to dislike bright colors. Miki thought that dark colors suited him better anyway. It matches his lifestyle and personality. She couldn't imagine Hibari in a flashy bright color shirt dancing at a party. Miki grimaced at the thought. No, that wouldn't suit Hibari at all. It was just too weird and…unnatural.

Miki continued to hang Hibari's clothes up when she suddenly heard a rustling noise from a tree. She looked up and saw a cow pattern kite stuck in a tree in the yard. She wondered where it came from. It was possible that some kid was playing with the kite and it ended up getting blown away. She should go and get it down just in case the owner comes looking for it.

Miki abandoned the laundry and walked towards the tree. She observed the tree for a moment. Finding a place where she could get a good footing, Miki started to climb up. When she was near the kite, she stretched out a hand to try and grab it. She couldn't reach it. Miki tried to edge closer to the kite with difficulty and stretched her arm out to try and grab the kite again. This time she succeeded, but she ended up loosing her footing. Miki let out a little scream as she started to fall. She braced herself for the impact with the ground.

"Itai!"

She landed on something hard, but it wasn't the ground. Her hands felt something like hard plastic. Miki opened her eyes and realized that she was sitting inside the laundry basket. Now, if Hibari was a real gentleman, he would have caught her in his arms like in the movies right? Her point exactly. He wasn't a gentleman and instead caught her using the laundry basket.

Seeing that his catch of the day was alright, Hibari tipped the laundry basket over and dumped Miki onto the ground.

Groaning, Miki sat up. "What was that for?" she yelled at the person who 'saved' her.

Miki didn't get to hear Hibari's answer for both of their attentions were drawn to the sudden voices that were being loudly heard nearby.

"Lambo-san was sure that the Lambo-san's kite went flying in this direction!"

"I don't see anything. Maybe it went flying into someone's yard."

"*()^%#$^#(^!*."

"Err…You mean you think that it's that house?"

Miki blinked. There was the voice of a little kid followed by another male voice and then a female voice that spoke in some foreign language. She couldn't make out what the third voice was trying to say, but it sounded like Chinese to her. Listening to their conversation, she realized that the boy must be looking for the cow patterned kite that was stuck in the tree.

"Are you looking for the cow patterned kite?" Miki shouted over the wall.

"Yeah, that's Lambo-san's kite!"

"I'll bring it out. Hang on," Miki replied before making her way to the front gate.

She exited the gate and saw a boy around her age with a little boy in a cow patterned suit and a little girl in Chinese clothing approaching.

"Here you go," she said, handing the kite over to the little boy named Lambo. "It was stuck in the tree in the yard."

"Thank you," the boy around her age said.

Miki smiled. "No problem."

The brunette then turned to face Hibari's house before exclaiming, "Whoa, do you live here? It's huge!"

"Actually, I don't."

"Really? Then what do you do here?" the boy asked out of curiosity.

"She works for me," a cold voice answered.

The brunette suddenly turned pale with a shock expression on his face. "H-Hibari-san!"

Hibari stepped out from behind the gate. "So, herbivore, I'm sure you had a good reason to create such a ruckus near my house?"

The person who Hibari called a herbivore started to back away. "I'm sorry! We didn't mean to! Honestly!"

He took another step back and then stopped. The girl in Chinese clothing clung to his leg and to Miki's puzzlement, now had six coin patterns on her head that wasn't there before. The boy started to sweat even more and started to panic.

"I-Pin saw Hibari and activated the Pinzu Time Bomb!" he yelled and frantically tried to pry I-Pin from his leg.

Miki was confused. Pinzu Time Bomb? What was that? When the boy managed to pull I-Pin off his leg, there were only five coins left. He then lifted I-Pin up and was going to throw her, but Miki got in and stopped him.

"Why are you going to throw her? She'll get hurt!"

"If I don't throw her, we'll be the ones who'll get hurt!"

"Why?"

"There's no time to explain!"

"Dame Tsuna, if you can't even handle I-Pin's time bomb, how are you going to handle all of the hardships that awaits you as the Vongola Decimo?"

"Reborn! When did you get here?...Oh, this isn't the time to be saying that!" Tsuna shouted at the newcomer, which to Miki's surprise was a baby in a tuxedo with a fedora on his head. Tsuna then threw I-Pin away.

"Juudaime! Good morning!" a second later, a grey haired male appeared at the scene from the direction I-Pin was tossed. She landed right in his arms.

"Gokudera-kun, throw I-Pin away quickly!"

"Yes sir!" Gokudera shouted, throwing I-Pin...back in Tsuna's direction.

"Don't throw it in this direction!" Tsuna yelled. He took a look at I-Pin. "There's only three left!"

"Hey, Tsuna! Eh? Gokudera and Hibari are here too?" a new cheerful male voice called out.

Out of all the chaos and panicking that was going on around her, a familiar voice got Miki's attention. She turned to look in that direction and spotted Yamamoto running towards them.

Seeing Yamamoto coming towards them lit a tint of hope Tsuna's eyes. He quickly threw I-Pin in Yamamoto's direction.

Yamamoto stared at I-Pin with only two coins left, who he'd just caught. He then smiled as a thought came to him. "Haven't we played something like this before?"

"Yamamoto, pitch it!" Tsuna shouted to his friend.

The word used during baseball became a keyword that triggered a switch in Yamamoto's mind. He got into pitching position and threw I-Pin with all his might like a baseball.

The remaining two coins on I-Pin's head turned into one. A moment later, a bright light and a loud explosion filled the sky. A few seconds after that, the light disappeared and everything went back to normal.

Miki just stood there in confusion. If this were an anime then there would be dozen of question marks floating above her head. She was now having a lot of trouble trying to process and put together what had just happened.

"Haha! That was fun!" Yamamoto laughed.

"You baseball idiot…" Gokudera muttered. He then caught sight of Hibari. "What are you doing here?" he scrawled.

Hibari shot Gokudera a death glare. "This is my house."

Gokudera's jaws dropped open in disbelief. "What!?"

"Really? Cool! Wow, your house is really big!" remarked Yamamoto as he observed the house in front of him. He then caught sight of Miki. "Hey, I met you the other day at school! It's Miki right?"

Miki nodded. Her mind was still kind of numb from what had just happened.

"Yamamoto, you know her?" Tsuna questioned his friend.

"Yeah, she's a friend of Hibari," he answered then turned back to Miki. "Right?"

"No. She works for me," Hibari replied instead.

All eyes were on Miki now.

Miki sighed. "It's a long story."

"You can tell it to us during lunch! Let's go have lunch at my place!" Yamamoto sudden said.

"Yay! Lambo-san wants to eat sushi!" Lambo started cheering.

Yamamoto laughed. "It's settled then! You are coming right, Miki? What about you Hibari?" he turned to ask the two.

Hibari didn't even take the time to think about it. He took one look at the group in front of him and headed straight back into the house.

Yamamoto sweatdropped. "I guess that was a no then."

Miki took a glance at Hibari and seeing that he didn't say anything, decided that it was okay to go with Yamamoto and the rest of the group.

"Okay, I'll go with you guys."