It's time for a standalone chapter, yes?
I'd like to take the time to thank you for all the follows/reviews/favourites! I do try to respond to each and every review I receive. I'm very happy that you're all enjoying the story, so far, and I hope I can continue to interest you with my future chapters and have your support!
Disclaimer: FANfiction. I only own the OC. Any changes to the original canon story is due to the fact that this is fanfiction.
Warning: May contain coarse language.
First-years alienated her. Second-years were terrified of her. Third-years knew to avoid her. Why was this? The answer was simple:
Hibari Kyoya.
From the moment she had set foot in that god forbidden prison of a school, the Varia assassin had not once been able to experience high school life like a normal person usually would. This was because from the first day, the infamously feared third-year student, head prefect of the disciplinary committee of Namimori High, had been rumoured to have his eye on the new transfer student from Italy, and if you wanted to at least live to see another day of the Disciplinary Committee's terrifying dictatorship, you would know better to leave the new first-year, Yang Riko, alone.
Riko didn't mind. She really couldn't care less. The number of fucks she gave was equivalent to the number of balls anyone in the school had to stand up to the terrifying prefect - zero. (Well, she was a bit of a hypocrite there but she did stand up to the irascible cloud guardian once in a while) This only gave her the opportunity to explore all of her interests, which she rarely got to do outside of school due to having a full-time job as one of the officers of the Varia assassination squad. Which would have been fine, if she had any hobbies that Hibari didn't consider a breach of school rules.
"My JUMP mangaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
"Quiet, herbivore. Or I'll bite you to death."
"I need my Narutoooooooooo!"
"I'm giving you one last warning."
"It was fucking expensive! Do you know how much an English translation of a manga magazine like that costs!? Especially in Japan!?"
Stormy deep-green eyes met steely grey eyes with an iron-clad resolve that burned like wildfire within them. Riko set her chin in a defiant angle, jutting it out, and glared at the impassive cloud guardian, who was seated at his desk in the Reception Room that had been claimed by the Disciplinary Committee. The item in question, a thick magazine with the word's JUMP in bold, colourful letters printed across the top, with a questionably-dressed cartoon character colored in various shades of orange, black and blonde dominating the front cover, sat on the very top of one of the many stacks of indiscernible paperwork (dirty underground deals perhaps? Who knew what Hibari did in his spare time? Riko sure as hell didn't care. A little.) that surrounded the delinquent prefect.
Hibari slowly put his pen down beside the tonfas that laid next to him on the desk. Lacing his fingers together underneath his chin, he opened his mouth and spoke. "Non-educational reading material, especially magazines, are not permitted within school grounds."
"I fucking know that very well now! If you give that back to me, I won't bring it back again!"
"You seem to misunderstand me. I have already confiscated it. That means, it's mine now, Yang Riko."
Riko gritted her teeth. "That's so not fair!"
"Also, this isn't the first time you've broken this rule. I was lenient before."
Uncharacteristically lenient, Kusakabe noted, but he kept his mouth shut. The cloud guardian's closest (in the loosest term possible) subordinate stood next to the door, arms folded across his chest, on stand-by in case Hibari needed anything from him. He usually didn't, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He wasn't a stranger to the dark-haired boy's temper tantrums, and it was a preference of his to steer clear of his leader's deadly outbursts. He would much rather stay out of the hospital if possible, thank you very much.
"English! It's in motherfucking English! And that means it's hella expensive!"
"Then go and buy a Japanese one. It's cheap, isn't it?"
"Oh fuck you! What makes you think I can read hiragana and kanji?"
Hibari raised a very interested eyebrow at this. Riko gulped. Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned her lack of ability to read Asian characters so explicitly. A wicked smile spread across his face. A sense of dread started to fill the girl. He was definitely planning to do something with that piece of information. She could practically see the prefect forming a plan within his mind.
"Oh? The little herbivore can't read Japanese?"
"I-is that you problem? I don't think so."
"It is, if you're my subordinate. You're expected to at least be of a certain degree of intelligent. Are you intelligent, Yang Riko?"
"I know more than a dozen languages!"
"The only one that matters is Japanese. How is your literature?"
"... Vete al infierno! Je t'emmerde! Leck mich am Arsch Miststück!"
"Hmph. I see."
Kusakabe rubbed a hand over his forehead with a sigh, taking care to not disturb the carefully coiffed pompadour that his hair was styled into. He shook his head lamentably — this girl really was on a whole new level of idiotic. Either that, or she was an extreme masochist.
xxxx
A sharp blade sang through the air as the point sliced across a man's stomach, releasing a stream of blood into the air and he fell onto his back with a lifeless thud. Pulling the blade back, a silver-haired man clad in a heavy black trench coat swung the blade strapped onto a hand that, upon closer inspection, was prosthetic, into yet another person who was about to jump him from behind.
"VOI! Where the fuck is that bitch?!" Squalo roared into his earpiece.
On the other end of the line, a voice crackled through. "Shishishi. Riko texted, cap. The little circus peasant says she's been kept in school and won't be able to make it here on time," an agonised scream, followed by a sickening sound of blood spattering onto the ground, erupted from Bel's end before his voice reached Squalo's ear again, "She says she'll only make it to the one after dinner."
"That fucking bitch! She's going to get it when I- VOI! Did I fucking ask you to take advantage of me with my guard down like that?!"
xxxx
"This sucks!"
"Quiet."
WHAM!
"Son of a bitch!"
Riko whimpered as she rubbed her shoulder, which was smarting from the pain of the ruthless boy's tonfa slamming into it without any warning. She threw a hateful look in his direction, but he didn't respond. In fact, he was oblivious to it. He was too absorbed in marking out pages in a Japanese literature textbook with a highlighter, and Riko had to be honest - this was severely out of character for the prefect. First of all, he didn't even attend classes! She knew this despite her being in the first year and him being in the third year, because she could always see the back of his head as he sat at his desk in the reception room in the building across from hers, from where she sat by the window.
Him sitting at a table across from her in the library was already plenty of cause for the sky to start raining pigs. She had checked for it, in fact, and there was nary a cloud to be seen. The sky was a tauntingly clear, cloudless cornwall blue, practically teasing the girl for her unfortunate run-in with the head prefect.
He had scared off all the other students by merely walking into the room, and now the both of them were alone. Hibari seemed hellbent on getting Riko to study Japanese lit, and that was why they were currently seated across from each other, with a book between them.
The end of a tonfa stabbed at a highlighted passage. "Read."
"Fuck you."
THWACK!
"Motherfucking bitch!"
"I said read."
"It's a middle-school level textbook!"
"A level higher than your actual abilities — you should be grateful I'm even sparing you this much dignity. Now read."
Her shoulder smarted and stung. The stitches on her back throbbed incessantly. Why the fuck wouldn't he just leave her alone? Last week had been bad enough already, when she'd been forced to accept Hibari's uncharacteristic charity to help her back home after that unfortunate incident that had caused her wounds to reopen. Lately it just seemed like her debt to him was piling up higher and higher, and she wouldn't be surprised if he would decide to cash it in one day for a full day's worth of slavery. Riko sighed and her eyes dropped to the text lined in a garish, fluorescent yellow, and with great difficulty, she forced the glaze out of her eyes and focused on the characters. Narrowing her eyes as she concentrated on matching the characters with what she could recall in her mental dictionary of characters, she started to read out loud in slow, measured tones.
"Mount Fuji is considered a world heritage website."
"Site."
"Whatever! It is one of the world's highest mountain peaks, along with Mount Hippopotamus."
"Himalayas."
"Many tincans visit it each year."
"Tourists."
Meanwhile Kusakabe was seated at the other table, surrounded by textbooks himself. Instead of studying like he was supposed to, he periodically sneaked glances askance at the pair occupying the table next to his.
Hibari had given him explicit orders to remain on watch for anyone who would potentially disturb the peace in the library while the both of them worked (which was pointless anyway because every last student had been sent screaming for the hills when Hibari had arrived). He was, to say at the very least, shocked, that the infamous Demon of Namimori was willingly in a library to do some actual studying (or help with it, anyway). He knew very well that the prefect hated stupid underlings, but helping one? That was unheard of. Even he himself had had trouble with history before, and Hibari had merely beaten him up every time he failed a test, until he had started barely scraping through the subject.
Why was he helping this one?
It was odd.
"In the spring seasoning-,"
"Season."
"One can see many cherry-bottomed teas."
"Cherry blossom trees."
Very, very odd.
I've just always had this idea that Hibari would be good at Japanese Lit, for some reason. Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Translations
Vete al infierno (spanish) - Go to hell
Je t'emmerde (french) - fuck you
Leck mich am Arsch Miststück (german) - kiss my ass, bastard
Let me know how you liked or disliked this chapter, or if you have any questions! Have a lovely week and I'll see you in the next chapter!
Delphoxi