Waking Up with the Sun Chapter 9: Lollipops pt. 3
Important Note pls read
I realized this while checking the canon for timelines and lmao OOPS I forgot that the Mukuro arc (in the manga) takes place before the swimming pool thing but whatever it was resolved within a few days, so altering that. The swimming/summer episodes literally take place right before the Varia arc. By this time they've all moved up a grade, so Ryohei (and Hazuki) are now third years, and the rest are second years.
The summer pool thing in the manga happens before the Mukuro Arc, but in the anime, the pool thing happens after the Mukuro Arc, so during their summer vacation (which takes place between the first and second semesters of the school year).
I blame the anime adaptation for changing things. When I started writing Lollipops, I initially followed the anime, which in which the start is during their summer vacation, post-Mukuro. Then the Varia Arc literally fucking happens 2 episodes later. I deleted an earlier Lollipops chapter because I got really confused about the timelines lmao
But this takes place less than a week after Varia Arc, which happens at the start of the fall semester. Canonically in the manga, the Varia Arc start off like 2 chapters after the Mukuro Arc, but I'd like to believe there were a couple of weeks in between lol because all the main manga arcs happen right after each other, but I really liked the slice of life parts of KHR. This is where altering canon comes in. The Byakuran Arc occurs literally right at the end of the Varia Arc. Separating these two incidents by like a month or two lol.
-Somewhere by the Namimori Shopping District, Tuesday, 18:34-
It had been almost three weeks since Hazuki last ran into anyone from Namimori, and though she was relieved that her life went back to normal, she felt like she was kind of missing out on something. Ryohei was sort of an exception seeing as their run routes were almost identical, but for a while even he disappeared. Besides, she was too busy with her life as a third year, though she wondered what happened to him. They're the same year, so he must have been experience some sort of the same problems, right?
The semester had started up, and soon enough she found herself interacting less and less with the Namimori Group, even Haru sightings became rare. There were instances when she'd thought she'd seen some of them in a blur, but she became too involved with her own school life to really think about it.
Her thoughts about previous encounters they had led to her to thoughts of food (she didn't even get to try) from the festival more a month back and that led her to picking something up from the convenience store after swim practice. A couple of onigiri here, some chips there, four or five or maybe ten lollipops here, two cans of Calpico there, a pack of Pocky, and a bar of chocolate.
Swimming made her hungry, damn it.
Hazuki unwrapped a lollipop and stuck it between her teeth and cheek to sit before pulling her phone (out of her brand new team jacket), checking her messages. She scrolled through her inbox when 2 messages appeared at the same time, both from friends she had outside the team, inviting her to grab sushi at some place called Takesushi. She checked the address and it happened to be a couple of blocks down the street, so she replied with a [Ya I'll be there in like 5 (｀・ω・´) lol.]
"Mou, Hinotaku! You're like 10 minutes later than you said you'd be, so we already ordered for you!"
Hazuki was greeted by a handful of girls she hung out with and pouted, "I had to stop by my aunt's shop, okay."
This was a big, fat lie. She stopped for about eight minutes to play with a dog that was tied up outside of a shop near the convenience store. The owner of the place welcomed her as he brought her a cup of tea, with an all too familiar smile.
Where have I seen that look before…?
Hazuki settled herself in, chatting up with her friends, not noticing the group of boys who came in from the back. It wasn't until she heard a distinguished laughter that she turned around and deadpanned.
There stood Yamamoto, Gokudera, and Tsuna.
"Are you kidding me?!" Hazuki nearly pulled her hair out as Yamamoto explained that the sushi restaurant they all currently sat in belonged to his father, and was named after him, Yamamoto Takeshi. Take-sushi. It's really clever, isn't it? Hahahahahaha-
Hazuki introduced her group of friends to the people she hadn't seen in almost a month, explaining that they were having a group date and that Tsuna and his friends should sit somewhere far away. Very far away.
Yamamoto laughed and blushed as the girls giggled. Ne, Hinotaku, he's cute. They're all so adorable. How old are they anyway? So young!
It took Hazuki a couple of minutes to stop the giggling teenage girls, and dismiss their comments.
Much to her surprise, they had actually chosen a table far in the back corner, unbeknownst to her that they chose it out of secrecy to talk about the recent events. She had walked over with her tea for casual conversation, not wanting to disturb the nice atmosphere of the restaurant with yelling across the room. Speaking of yelling, a certain loud-mouthed moron was missing... "It really does pain me to say, but I don't think I've lasted this long without seeing you guys. What happened? Got kidnapped?" Hazuki commented, words sprinkled with slight sarcasm as she sipped her tea.
"Aahhh, just some stuff came up. You know, school and all that," Tsuna sheepishly answered, not wanting to explain the mess that was the Vongola Decimo and Famiglia vs. Varia incident, or that some of them nearly destroyed the school, nor that they were responsible for the mass destruction that occurred in downtown Namimori not too far back.
Hazuki paid little attention to what the boy was saying, now distracted by Yamamoto sr.'s skilful fish cutting, the art disrupted by the loud slam open of the wooden doors, "Yoooooooooo!"
Think of the devil and he shall appear. Only this time Hazuki would rather have the devil appear instead of the loudmouth, followed by his cute little sister who was living proof that Ryohei was somehow adopted or something, and Haru. Haru squeaked at the girls she recognised from her school, addressing them politely and calling them out by their Student Council titles.
"Maa maa, Miura-chan. School's been over for like, four hours, no need for formalities," one of them sighed, waving her hand. Hazuki rolled her eyes behind her glasses and turned around to greet them with a wry smile, only to get a closer view at the trio who had just walked in, noticing that Ryohei seemed slightly more beat up than usual. She dismissed it as something boxing related.
"Hi."
"Hahi!?"
Kyoko and Ryohei made their way to the back table, and Ryohei greeted her enthusiastically, mentioning something about a race, she didn't really pay attention. Instead she gracefully glided over to Kyoko and held her hands up to her face, leaning in close, "Kyoko-chaaan, how can you hang out with these brutish and disgusting men? You should transfer to Midori! I'll take good care of you, hime-sama~!"
Tsuna made a loud cry and everyone turned to him. It was an awkward five seconds. Hazuki raised an eyebrow before turning back to Kyoko with pleading eyes, who only smiled gently, "Gomen ne, I really like Namimori!"
It's like she's almost sparkling.
Hazuki made an overly dramatic sigh, still ignoring Ryohei as she made her way back to her table, giving a slight wave to Haru, who bowed her head and skipped over to the others.
"You sure have some weird friends, Hinotaku."
"Psh. You're one to talk. You're the one who invited me to eat sushi."
The table filled with Midori Middle girls soon erupted with laughter and enthusiastic cheers as their food was brought out, ending the little interactions between the two tables separated by the emptied space of the small restaurant.
Both tables enjoyed their meals, and not long after finishing their food, Kyoko and Haru were invited to join the other girls at their table, Hazuki being extra loud as she mentioned something about brutish and disgusting men. Gokudera was almost successful in throwing a small bomb at their table, but was stopped almost instantly at Tsuna's cry. The other table went silent and Hazuki poked her head out of the crowd, raised an eyebrow, and rolled her eyes after 2 seconds, reconvening the conversations.
"Maa, Tsuna. You should calm down and just eat more, hahah!"
"Tch, really. Who does that girl think she is?!"
Ryohei returned from using the restroom just as another conversation erupted at the other table. All that could be heard from the guys' perspective were mentions of 'cosplay' and 'accuracy' and 'Hinotaku'? Tsuna's eye twitched. Were they really talking about anime? With this little shame? In a sushi place?
Ryohei laughed loudly at the other table, and was joined by Yamamoto, "Sawada! It sounds like they're having a lot of fun! We should, too!"
"Eeehh? Onii-san? A-Are you suggesting that w-w-we join them?" Tsuna looked to what seemed to be an intimidating large group of girls. He had just defeated Xanxus of the Varia not too long ago and he was afraid of middle school girls?
What has my life become.
Ryohei laughed even louder, "I was just gonna suggest doing something extremely fun, but that sounds entertaining, too!"
"Don't go making decisions like that, turf-top! Look! You're even making the boss look sick!"
"Whaddya say, octopus-head?!"
And so the normal violent eruption occurred in the corner of the small restaurant, and Tsuna turned to Yamamoto, hoping to find some solace, only to see that the Rain Guardian wasn't there. He looked around in panic and found the tall boy laughing with the girls, who all seemed to be really interested in Yamamoto. Yamamoto-kun?!
Yamamoto turned to beckon Tsuna to come over, only to shock Tsuna even more with the baby that sat in his arms, who merely raised his hand and gave his famous greeting, "Ciaossu." The girls erupted at the cute.
Tsuna nearly face-planted. So that's why they looked so interested. It's because Reborn is here.
Tsuna hesitantly walked over and plopped on a chair at the adjacent table, scratching the back of his head, laughing sheepishly.
What's there to talk about with a bunch of girls?!
"Reborn-chan just told us the cutest story of how you guys defeated a big, bad, group of mafioso!" Hazuki cooed, obviously not believing the eccentric tale. Tsuna nearly choked on his own spit and gave a wide-eyed look at the baby, who gave no acknowledgment of his existence.
"Such a funny story, though. Sounds like something that would only happen in a manga," one of the girls pitched in, rolling her eyes.
"Ahahahahah… manga… Right…"
"Ne, Tsunayoshi. Lemme rightfully introduce you to the group… This over here is Nozomi, the student council vice president. This is Hana-chan, student council secretary. This is Nagisa, our treasurer. And this is Yuki, the president. That nerd over there is Mai. She and I are co-presidents of the Anime club."
Hazuki gave her introduction to her friends, pointing at them as she went along. When she got to the one named Mai and called her a nerd, a discarded piece of egg as thrown at her face. They almost started a fight.
Hazuki then did that thing with her pinky in her nose, and proceeded to introduce Tsuna, Yamamoto, and those two weird guys over there to her friends. Her comment was countered with another scrap of egg. This time from across the room.
Another fight was almost started.
Hazuki pulled her finger out of her nose and flicked a booger at Mai, who proceeded to beat her up with her bag. Tsuna deadpanned at the sight. He could see the similarities between how Hazuki interacted with her own friends versus how his friends acted with each other.
The other girls were relatively normal, engaged in conversations with Kyoko and Haru, as well as continuously cooing at Reborn's "super kawaii" three piece suit and fedora. The baby merely smiled.
Don't feed his ego, please…
Majority of the fighting stopped, especially after one of the girls pulled out her phone and exclaimed at the time, mentioning to her friends something about postponing karaoke. Hazuki scratched the back of her head as she paid, grumbling under her breath that she spent a lot today, and opened up another lollipop.
"You know, one of these days your teeth are going to rot and fall out…" Mai commented while paying, not even glancing at her friend.
"Bleh whatever. I'd rather enjoy what I can now than complain about what I can't enjoy in the future," Hazuki retorted, sticking her tongue out.
The fight in the back had thankfully calmed down as Gokudera gave up trying to get some point through Ryohei's thick skull, the older boy chatting with Kyoko. Yamamoto waved to his friends as they left, both old and new, and went back inside to help his father with the clean up. Yamamoto sr. was pleased with tonight's earnings, as the girls had left him with a note: ['Thanks for the sushi! (づ￣ ³￣)づ"PS Your son is really cute lol (*･∀･)／ ]. Yamamoto chuckled in embarrassment and went back to cleaning.
Gokudera bid his beloved Tenth goodbye before walking towards the general direction of his apartment. Tsuna noticed Hazuki waving to her friends, all of them heading in the opposite direction she was going, which so happened to be the same direction that he, Ryohei, and Kyoko headed. Haru walked with them for half a block before turning onto her street, and soon they were in front of Hazuki's house. The girl waved and yelled out Have a good night before shutting the door. Tsuna turned to his street and waved to Kyoko and Ryohei, and it was a nice 3-minute walk to his house.
The stars were out, the sky was clear, and the night was calm. All in all, a good day had passed, a good day indeed.
*~*END*~*
Ahahah.
I'll be putting out another Lollipops chapter after this. Also, I've said this before, I'm horrible with coming up with names for characters, so the student council names are all pulled from different series LOL.