Waking Up with the Sun Chapter 11: Lollipops pt. 5
Ryohei literally ran into Hazuki after coming back from the future, his mind occupied with something else and hers occupied with the ice cream cone that currently covered the ground god damn it I just bought that. This is getting old. He had crashed right into her as she was turning the corner next to her house, and the vanilla ice cream Hazuki was enjoying was no more.
Ryohei stared at the girl for a second before jumping her and hugging her. What the fresh hell...
" 'orry. Had a rough... day," he mumbled into the fabric of her sweater. She awkwardly patted him on the back.
"There, there..?"
They sat in the middle for a few seconds before the boy released her from his (death) grip. He helped her up, "Let's have a race, Hazuki!"
Confused would be putting things lightly right about now. Befuddled was a word that came to mind. Hazuki rubbed the bridge of her nose and stared at him for a few seconds (he didn't stop grinning) and she resigned herself to a sigh and waved her hand.
"Let me go change, first."
The girl beckoned him to come inside, and he waited around the living room area as she went upstairs. It was a relatively simple and ordinary house with cute furniture, nothing too out of the ordinary. He did notice a lot of photos of the woman he identified as her aunt and some others that he figured to be relatives. There were a couple of pictures she was in, but there was only one where she stood with two completely different people. Her hair was a natural dark brown, cut in a bob-style. She was wearing a simple dress and stood in front of two very professional looking people. She looked much younger, and her skin a lot lighter. The three figures stood in front of a Tokyo train station stop, and the attitude didn't seem very… comfortable to say the least. He picked up the frame for a better look and didn't notice Hazuki as she came down the stairs, her socks muffling her footsteps. He turned to her and saw a somewhat distant look on her face.
"That was a couple of years ago… Before I moved to Namimori," she said as she sat on the floor to put her running shoes on.
"I didn't know that you're not from here! Tokyo, huh? Must've been extreme to live there!" he replied, slipping his shoes on.
"Uh yeah. I've only lived here since a couple of weeks before we started middle school. Tokyo was a… big place, to say the least," she reminisced, stroking her chin, "but I like Namimori a hell of a lot more!"
"That's great! But how come you don't live with your parents?" he asked, curious about the girl's living situation. He had long since put the photo back, and they both made their way to the door.
"It's… a long and complicated story," she answered, eyes cast downwards, trying to avoid the topic. Ryohei tilted his head, still curious, not reading the mood. Eh? It shouldn't be that bad!
"We have a long run ahead of us!" he grinned, eager to know more about the girl. She narrowed her eyes. He took no notice of it as he bounded out the door.
*~*U*~*
Hazuki thanked many gods that Ryohei had bad memory and didn't ask her about her parents. She took it upon herself to find an even better distraction. Their race had not lasted long, as Hazuki distracted him from the race just a little over a kilometre from their starting point. There was a small shop filled with baked goods at the edge of the suburbs, right by the road next to the riverbank. She had stopped to look at the sweets, but found more excitement when she noticed who was inside.
"Kyoko-chan!"
The younger girl turned in surprise and greeted Hino and her older brother at the door, "Ah, Hino-chan, onii-chan!"
"What are you doing here, kawaii-hime?"
Kyoko blushed at the nickname and pointed to a girl behind her, "I'm with my best friend, Hana-chan!"
Said girl waved her hand, and Hino waved back and smiled, "Nice to meet you, Hana-san." They shook hands and smiled, but the pleasantries were interrupted by Ryohei sputtering nonsense before running out the door. Hino looked at him in confusion, before running after him, "Gotta go, Kyoko-hime!"
Hana and Kyoko looked at each other before shrugging their shoulders and returning to the cake stands.
*~*U*~*
"Oi oi! What the hell was that all about?"
"N-N-NOTHING!"
Hino had finally caught up the Ryohei, who was holding his hands in his face, blushing furiously. He was leaning over the rail by the riverbank, millions of thoughts running through his mind, but 99% of those thoughts were flashbacks to the picture he saw in his room in the future. It's Hana. The girl in the picture is Hana. Kurokawa Hana, the girl who hates kids and talks about only wanting older—I'M OLDER! A YEAR ISN'T THAT EXTREME A DIFFERENCE BUT—
Hino mistook the redness in his face for blood rush from his sprint and sat down on the ground next to him.
"…Ano…" Hino began, scratching the back of her head, "I know we're kinda just rivals, but we're friends too… So if you have anything on your mind, it's not like it'd be that much of a pain in the ass if you needed someone to talk to."
Ryohei looked up and chuckled, "You're a good person, Hazuki! One of the best friends I've had in an extremely long time!"
Hino smirked and nodded, "I know, I know. Also the fastest, you better believe it."
"Ehhhhhhh?! You couldn't even keep up with me!"
The teens glared at each other, sparks of a sports rivalry flying before they both burst out into laughter.
"C'mon stupid, we still have a race to finish."
Ryohei pouted, "Who're you calling stupid, stupid?!"
*~*U*~*
Namimori Middle School, [2] months later—post-inheritance arc
Sasagawa Ryohei dedicated his life to three things: protecting his sister, living life to the extreme, and boxing. Studying ranked nowhere near his life's priorities. Even after becoming a Vongola guardian, though his loyalty was strong to Tsuna, he'd spend day after day training and boxing (and attempting to recruit Tsuna into the boxing club).
So when people started pestering him about high school entrance exams (especially considering his grades weren't the best… or good, for the matter), he started to get pissed off.
Especially when one Hazuki Hino would annoy him on a daily basis, stressing the importance of schooling, education blah blah blah future blah blah blah college. He'd learn to tune her out during their runs. She would blame his lack of response on an attention deficit disorder or one or ten too many punches to the head and sigh and go onto talking about something else, like cake. What the hell was with these girls and their cakes? Don't they know cake makes them fat? He said that to Hazuki once in front of his sister and Haru, the younger girls giving him the most depressed frowns he'd ever seen. His mouth dried up as he tried to apologize to Kyoko, saying he didn't mean anything. Hazuki then whacked him in the head with her school bag, pushing him down the grassy hill of the riverbank. He never said anything about it ever again.
Girls are terrifying. And obsessed with cake.
Ryohei ran his hands through his hair in aggravation, staring at the notes Hazuki made for him. Since Midori curriculum was much harder, she took up the job of tutoring him (for the small fee of a parfait once a week). He spent his afternoons training in the boxing room, and went through the notes at home. She spent her afternoons alternating between cram school and swim practice, and occupied her weekends with more studying.
The notes laid out in front of him were perfect, to be quite honest. They were neat, understandable, and the notebook paper even smelled good. She even made small doodles on the sides, cheering him on. He apologized for making her do something so detailed, but she brushed it off saying that teaching someone how to do things is just as effective as studying. Then she chided him for not understanding a lot of things and teased him about it. He promptly shut her up by threatening to never buy her sweets ever again.
Now it wasn't the material that was annoying him. It was the matter of the fact that he had to do this. Reborn had given him a firm (and violent) warning about not getting into high school, mentioning something about Vongola guardians being at the top of their game and education in between firing multiple warning shots and various kicks to the head. Tsuna could only stand and watch from the sidelines, silently cheering for the older boy and crying from sympathy.
There really was a truth to what everyone was saying, but the straw that broke the camel's back was Kyoko coming into his room after he returned from practice one afternoon. The look on her face and the speech she gave about him needing to get into high school were powerful, and he couldn't refuse. When he talked to his homeroom teacher about entrance exams, his teacher was needless to say, shocked but enlightened that Ryohei had made his choice to try to get into Namimori High. Besides, that school had a boxing team that needed an extreme captain to push them all to their limits.
So here he was, staring at the neat notes adorned with doodles and sticky notes with extra information on them, explaining some sort of complicated math problem with too many letters. Why even are there letters in this, this is math!
His anxiety was interrupted by his phone buzzing, the LED screen notifying him that Hazuki had sent him a text. She had gotten out of a study group and was heading home, but it was already past eleven o'clock and she didn't want to walk home alone. The boy seized this opportunity by the balls and darted out the door with a hoodie in tow.
*~*U*~*
When he wasn't fighting or training (read: being physically abused by Reborn), Tsuna spent his free time cramming homework, babysitting, and studying (read: being physically abused by Reborn, only with books). He pulled on his hair in frustration, attempting to understand and catch up with his studies. No longer did he have to be the Vongola Decimo, but instead Reborn had taken it upon himself to make Tsuna the Neo Vongola Primo instead.
As if that was any better, really.
Gokudera embraced this enthusiastically, but the 'juudaime' nickname would follow him to his grave. Reborn's training regimens only got harder, but Tsuna quickly adapted to them, much to Reborn's delight.
Tsuna hated to admit it, but at that current moment, he would much rather get shot at by his tutor than get books he was supposed to be studying shoved in his face. After a few hours of sitting, he moved to stretch his legs only to have them cramp up.
This sucks.
Deciding that it was finally time for a break, Tsuna opened his window to get a breath of fresh air, only to see Ryohei jogging by. He attempted to call out to the older boy, but the boxer was too fast and was already down the street.
I wonder where onii-san is headed. He let himself space out for a bit, only to be interrupted by a tiny foot to the back of his head. Tsuna rubbed the spot that was kicked and turned to glare at Reborn, the latter brandishing a sadistic smirk. Tsuna sighed in resignation as he sat back down to stare at his notes.
*~*U*~*
Hazuki waited in front of the convenience store with a hot steamed pork bun in one hand and her cellphone in the other. The store was right around the block from where she was studying, and was an easy enough location for Ryohei to find (hopefully). She stared at the reply she'd gotten from the boxer, and estimated that he would arrive within at least the next five minutes.
It's not that Namimori wasn't an unsafe neighbourhood. Even with the Kokuyo incidents. Or the city suddenly being blown to pieces that one time. Or some other stuff that didn't seem right about this small town that couldn't be attributed to anything other than the unexplained. Okay, maybe Namimori wasn't exactly a haven, but it wasn't exactly a torn up town with a red light district and rampant crime.
She argued to herself that it was still really late and dark out and this could have been avoided if she had her swimming stuff because she would at least have an extra set of clothes and be able to spend the night. But it was curry night, and even if it was late, she knows there are leftovers on the table as always.
She took another bite of the pork bun, debating if she wanted to go back inside to get another one for Ryohei. It was kind of him to say that he'd come walk with her, but a nagging thought at the back of her head said that he was probably procrastinating on studying.
Her hunch was validated as Ryohei arrived, loud as always, complaining about the notes he'd given her and how they were boring and math was useless in boxing.
"How are you supposed to get into high school with that kind of attitude, idiot?" she chided. Ryohei followed her as she teased him while walking back into the store. They continued talking as she purchased another steamed pork bun and gave it to him.
He frowned in dismay and scratched his head, "…Boxing?" before biting into the bun in the most savage way Hazuki had ever seen anyone eat.
Disgusting.
"Ugh, not every problem can be solved with boxing… Come over to my place tomorrow and I'll tutor you…" she began, seeing his eyes shine, "for a small price, of course."
He grunted, "Chocolate or strawberry…"
"Strawberry, please~! And oh! I want the deluxe one this time, the one with the cookies!"
"When you get fat, I'm going to laugh at you."
"Hey! How dare you say that to a blossoming young maiden!" she yelled, punching his arm as hard as she could. Of course this had no effect as Ryohei had hardened muscles from vigorous training and exercise and the very fact that her punches were really weak. She pulled her hand back, trying to shake off the pain. Ryohei laughed. This time she kicked the back of his knee.
They walked together through the neighborhood, discussing normal teenager things like school and high school entrance exams. Hazuki's cram school was going well, but she hated it because a new video game came out and she hadn't the time to play it. Ryohei had a mildly similar complaint, mentioning being too busy training to catch up on his JUMP. Kyoko took it upon herself to buy him his Weekly Shounen Jump, but they'd just been growing in piles in a corner of his room.
Hazuki laughed at him and called him a casual. Ryohei called her an 'otaku'. She punched him in the arm with futile efforts once more.
"Do you think things are going to change once we graduate?" Hazuki asked as they turned a corner.
"Hmmm… only if you want things to," the boy answered.
"Do you think we'd still hang out when we're in high school?"
"Of course! I won't rest until our scores are settled and I finally beat you in an extreme swimming race!"
"That is literally never going to happen, Rumble Fish-idiot," Hino deadpanned, still having not-so fond memories of witnessing the worst swimming she had ever seen in her life.
"Oi, oi! What kind of encouraging sportsmanship is that supposed to be?!"
Ryohei had reacted strongly to the insult as Hino merely smiled and laughed to herself.
Their banter and bicker ended as they reached Hino's house, most of the lights off sans the porch light.
"Thanks for this, by the way. Call me on your way over tomorrow," Hino smiled as she opened the gate.
"Maa sure whatever. Just don't expect to be paid until after you've helped me understand algebra."
Ryohei made sure that the girl was inside before leaving to make his way home. Now that they had talked about high school and beyond, the weight of academics felt heavier than necessary. Surely their lives would change, but it's only high school. That's three more years to push off worrying about actually securing a future.
Maybe he had it easy, though. Being part of the Vongola already had a sense of a secured future as Tsuna's Sun Guardian. He could most people weren't lucky enough to have an easy enough plan to follow, but most people also didn't have a guaranteed life of bloodshed and conflict ahead of them either. Ryohei could honestly not disclose which life would be more stressful.
Man, growing up sucks.
*END*
A/N: So after this, I have maybe 1 or 2 Lollipops chapters focusing on the kids in middle school, and around 5 more Lollipops chapters planned involving the transition to/during high school.
After that it'll all be Waking Up with the Sun/adult life chapters. This also means less happy children and more sad adult lyfe :^)