~ II.I ~

"Damn it!" Tsuna ran down the stairs, his schoolbag hanging loosely from his shoulders and his clothes in disarray; his hair – already an untamed brunette mass – was now also a nest of bed hair. There were slight bags under his bloodshot eyes.

He somehow managed to put his right shoe on the left foot and his left shoe vice versa as he went to quickly run out the door. He cursed again as he moved to fix it and then debated against it; after all, he was late!

Namimori high school was 15 minutes away and there he was, only 6 minutes till the morning bell was supposed to go off! He should have seen this coming… his alarm clock hadn't gone off and his mother didn't care to wake him up for school.

He galloped out the front door, a complete wreck.

And, within a split second, he became a complete wreck sprawled across the concrete walkway leading out of his front yard. His palms bled and his cheek stung numbly as he gripped his throbbing knee and hissed in pain. He cut a glare at the culprit for his fall.

A package rested guilelessly in front of his house, wrapped in brown paper with no return or mailing address on it.

His anger turned to curiosity. Quickly, his curiosity turned to terror. Only 3 minutes left! He left the package for his mom to pick up; after all, she most likely would just throw it away if he brought it to her.

Almost 12 minutes later, he ran through the front gates of his school. Who was the first person he saw?

"H-H-Hibari!" Tsuna cowered from the disciplinary figure. Kyoya Hibari, preferring the name Hibari, was the brutal and unbending prefect of Namimori High; anyone who broke school rules was 'bitten to death', as the committee president would like to say right before beating someone till they were unconscious.

He tried to think up a good excuse as to why he was late (aside from the fact that he had slept in because that just never worked on the other teen), and came up with nothing. "U-Uumm…" He gulped as Hibari's eyes narrowed dangerously on him, a predator catching the scent of his prey.

"Tsunayoshi Sawada…" He pointed at something behind him. "Leave your mail at home."

Had it been possible, he would have collapsed from relief; okay, so Hibari might just let him get to class without sending him to the nurse's first!

And then his words caught up with him; mail?

Sticking out of his school bag was the package.

"Hiiiieee! W-what – how'd that get in there?" His voice was shrill with disbelief. Hadn't he left it at home?

Hibari took out his infamous tonfas, the steel rods glinting in the sun. "Tsunayoshi Sawada… You're late for school."

Apparently, he would be visiting the nurse's anyway.

"Mah, mah; so this thing just showed up in your school bag?" Yamamoto – the star baseball player of Namimori with beige skin, copper eyes, and jet black hair, his frame tall and lithe – had the package in his inquisitive hands, eyes curious as he turned the box this way and that.

Tsuna, a few bandages more, nodded. "I left it at home, I know I did! But when I got to school, it was just… there." His eyes went to Gokudera, his other best friend.

Gokudera had silver hair, eyes that changed from a glow-in-the-dark green to a smoky grey depending on his mood, pale alabaster skin, and a bad-ass attitude. At the moment, however, he was… sulking.

Ever since what had happened three years ago (his baby brother dying), Gokudera had taken it upon himself to suddenly stop being a jackass to him (he had believed Tsuna to be a weakling unfit for life) and protect him to the best of his abilities, following him around like a puppy with its tail up in the air.

So it was understandable that Gokudera was depressed at the moment; after all, Tsuna was literally a walking bruise, what with having said his hellos to the earth before saying his hellos to Hibari's tonfas. Gokudera was most likely blaming himself for not being able to protect him…

"Hah hah!" Yamamoto quirked an eyebrow at the mail. "How weird…"

Tsuna sighed. "I know."

"Well!" Yamamoto outstretched the package to him. "You wanna open it?"

"Idiot!" Gokudera flew out of his corner of depression straight at Yamamoto's head with a clenched fist. "What if there's something dangerous inside of it? What if someone is trying to hurt the Tenth!" He growled at the baseball star.

'Tenth' was a nickname Gokudera had developed for him; something to do with '10' being his favorite number and Tsuna being his favorite person… This was from a person who had named his temperamental, strangely homicidal cat Melon; Tsuna had long since stopped trying to find reason in Gokudera's name-giving abilities.

"I'll open it for you, Tenth!" Gokudera snatched the package from Yamamoto's outstretched arms, dragged in a deep breath while holding himself tensely as if he honestly believed the box would in someway harm him, and then tore it open. "… Eh?"

They all stared at the box's contents: a note and what appeared to be a seed… Like a plant seed.

"What the hell?" Gokudera went on to curse as he lifted the note and flipped it open; his expression only twisted in more confusion. "What the fuck language is this?"

"Lemme see…" Yamamoto peeked over the silverette's shoulder. His eyebrows drew together in uncertainty. "Mah, mah… It looks like something an alien would write!" He scratched the back of his head.

Tsuna wasn't paying attention to them, however; the seed held his full and horrified attention. Was it just him, or was the seed turning color? At first a light tan, it appeared to turn a pale indigo shade.

"Tenth?" Gokudera waved a hand in his face, looking worried. "Hey, Tenth, are you alright?" He looked from him to the seed.

It was light tan.

Tsuna shook his head and turned his attention to his friends. Yamamoto held the note, turning the paper this way and that. At one point, he began rubbing the paper. "Hah! Even the paper feels weird…" He smiled, as if he much enjoyed the texture of the sheet. "It feels like downy feathers…"

"Idiot!" Gokudera growled. "Paper doesn't feel like feathers!" As if to prove his point, he grabbed the parchment back and rubbed it. His anger dissipated, turning into shock. "Holy shit…"

Yamamoto laughed. "See? It feels soft, right?" He took it from Gokudera and handed it to Tsuna. "Feel it!"

Tsuna, eyeballing the seed cautiously, absentmindedly petted the paper. His attention was torn from the unborn flower to the parchment, surprised that Yamamoto was right – it felt exactly like downy feathers… but it looked like normal paper to him.

Next to catch his attention was the writing. He frowned; Gokudera and Yamamoto had acted as if it was a completely different language, but it was perfectly eligible to him.

White Lotus Stamen

Stamen? Well, he had heard of white lotuses… but stamen? He pondered the word for a long moment, trying to think of what it meant. Vaguely, he remembered his science teacher talking to them about plants the other day, but only just – he never really paid attention in that class.

"The pistil is the ovary of the flower while the stamen is the male reproductive organ" or something like that…

He kept reading.

* Place the seed in warm water.

* Change the water every day until the seed sprouts. Make sure that the seed remains in a sunny place.

* Once the roots emerge, feed the seed with one droplet of blood everyday –

WHAT?

He gaped at the direction; there was no way lotuses were grown like that! Blood? Was there some typo in the notes?

* When the roots resemble hands, the seed is ready to crack open; remove the seed from the warm water and place beneath your pillow; preferably, place it right beneath where you rest your head as you sleep so the seed may draw energy from your dreams –

There was… no way. Just… no way.

"Tenth?" Gokudera looked freaked out. "Are you okay, Tenth?" He tore the note away from him, as if he suspected it to have caused Tsuna's horrified and pale expression. "Don't worry! I'll take care of this! You'll never have to see it again, I promise!" He didn't even give Tsuna time to reply as he grabbed the box and crumbled the note, throwing it back into the package. He ran off the school rooftop and then emerged out the front entrance far below; he kept running until he was far from sight.

Yamamoto and Tsuna watched in silence…

"Hah hah!" Yamamoto was the first to break the hush. "Gokudera can really run!"

Author's Note: Yes, it starts out slow…