Title: Language Barriers
Summary: Snippets of Tsuna's time in China as he travels with seven other people and their rather colourful personalities.
Ryohei woke slowly, a bit groggy but comfortable nonetheless. He opened his eyes and blinked up at the bed above him. He turned to look around and found that there wasn't anyone in the cabin. He started sitting up but the blankets pulled and shifted around him, and he found he didn't want to leave the cocoon of warmth.
Was he… tucked in? He lifted his head and saw that yes, he was. He smiled, feeling nostalgic. He really missed Kyoko, but she was back in Germany while he was touring China to look for fighters to train with.
Well, he guessed he would have to train hard and get back as soon as possible because not only did he have Kyoko waiting for him, he also had a boxing gym to run and a championship to win. A smile spread across his face.
He would make sure that this time someone trustworthy would handle his drug test so it won't get switched for a positive one. He wouldn't get disqualified in the semi-finals this time - after all he had promised to Kyoko, who had looked so sad.
'Ah, Ryohei,' Takeshi said happily, stepping into the cabin. 'We were all getting worried. Tsuna will be very glad you're awake.'
Tsuna? Oh, that's right. The last thing he remembered was eyes of fire.
"Tsuna is very extreme," Ryohei said in admiration, tossing the blankets off and sitting hunched so he wouldn't hit the top bunk. "He should join my boxing gym." Talent like that shouldn't go to waste.
Takeshi nodded. 'Yeah, Tsuna was very worried. He said he didn't mean to hit you that hard but you looked so strong so he might have put in a bit too much force.' Takeshi laughed a bit as he repeated Hayato's translation but without the muttered comments in between of how they were all idiots and shouldn't have made Tsuna act in the first place.
Takeshi quickly reached up to his bed for a camera and grinned, beckoning Ryohei to follow. 'C'mon, they're in the other room.'
Ryohei stood and followed the tall Korean three gaps down to the cabin and paused in the door way. There were four of them twisted into complicated knots as they struggled to stay on the coloured circles scattered over every surface of the cabin. Lambo heckled from the top left bunk, while Kyouya was situated next to the Russian and spun the arrow to dictate where the players would almost kill themselves straining for next.
The lowest one appeared to be Hayato, the poor man in a push up position from his two hands on the two spots furthest from the door and his feet on the two closest. A groan of pain escaped the silver haired man as Mukuro cursed and tried to inch the spot closer because his leg was cramping from where his foot was under the Italian, his three other limbs collected on three spots very close together.
Tsuna had one foot balanced on the window, one on the fold out table under the window and was bent over in a bridge, arching diagonally over Hayato's head and Mukuro's back to land by Chrome's hands. The girl of the group was quite obviously winning, despite doing a one handed handstand with her feet on the top bunk opposite Lambo and the other hand on the bottom bunk.
Takeshi immediately started snapping pictures.
Lambo snuck in and stole a red circle. All of the players groaned, muttering their hatred in different languages. Ryohei couldn't help but laugh. Perhaps a bit too loudly because some of the people in the cabin startled. Ryohei reminded himself to tone it down – just because his hearing wasn't fully developed didn't mean everyone was the same.
Tsuna appeared to light up at the sight of him, or perhaps that was the blood rushing to the man's face. 'Ryohei! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hit you that hard. Are you okay? No dizziness?'
"Tsuna, you must definitely join my boxing gym, you're extremely extreme!" Ryohei praised.
The people paused for a bit then Lambo translated to Russian and Hayato took over from there, speaking in Korean and finally Takeshi spoke to Tsuna in rather broken Japanese.
'Oh!' Tsuna cried in understanding. 'Definitely, I'll come and visit your home.'
Ryohei took the nodding as assent to his question instead of the diluted end result from the string of translations and grinned widely.
'Left hand, yellow,' Kyouya ordered in English.
Chrome passed it on to Mukuro in Dutch and the purple haired man debated for a moment. The only yellow free was under the bottom bunk opposite Mukuro, who wouldn't be able to reach that far considering he was partly pressed into the gap under the table. He really regretted making the others cut out the rule that you could share circles, but in his defence the Skylark started it.
'My apologies,' he murmured. 'But I will not lose this.' Mukuro lifted his hand and oh so accidentally bumped into Tsuna, knocking the man's hand off balance and sending him toppling onto Hayato with a yelp, as well as making Chrome collapse from her arm being hit. The three landed in a large pile and Mukuro wiggled his foot out from under the crushed Italian.
Takeshi darted in and helped them up. The four stretched out their limbs and sighed in relief at the sore muscles loosening. No one seemed to notice Chrome's glare apart from Ryohei, but then everyone was too busy glaring at Mukuro, because they all knew he wouldn't have made it so he deliberately knocked Tsuna over.
Kyouya leapt down from the top bed and shoved the chart at Chrome, prepared to play. Takeshi gave his camera to Mukuro and Tsuna coaxed Lambo down and climbed up while Hayato escaped for some proper stretches in the hallway.
Takeshi, Ryohei, Kyouya and Lambo looked expectantly at Chrome for instructions. The woman's smile inched into Mukuro territory and they wondered if they made a mistake.
A/N:
Tsuna- Japanese
Kyoya- All Chinese dialects, English
Hayato- Italian, Universal, English, Mandarin, French. Non-fluent in Russian, Korean, Greek, Spanish. In the process of learning Japanese for Tsuna
Mukuro- Afrikaans, Italian
Chrome- Dutch, English
Lambo- Russian, German, Polish
Ryohei- German
Takeshi- Korean. Non-fluent in Japanese
Depending on the point of view, all other languages will be shown 'like this'.
I was going to add languages as I go so I can cheat but whatever.
Poll: Pairings?
Kyoya- 11
Oblivious Tsuna- 2
No pairings- 3
All- 1
Hayato- 2
Mukuro- 1
Chrome- 1
Reborn- 1