Goodness, it's been a while, hasn't it? Earlier this year I started my undergrad degree, and have thus been very preoccupied with life in general. It's summer in Australia now, and I'm pretty much a free agent until summer school starts, so I've decided to get a little bit more writing in while I still can!
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 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.
She had done it again.
Riko fought to keep the fear she felt out of her body, but there was no denying the terror creeping into her system as a very quiet Hibari was rooted in the spot where he stood.
Now, normally a quiet, motionless Hibari would have made for a good time for the acrobat to make a hasty exit, especially if she was feeling particularly threatened by the brunette. However, the latest mishap involving the messy link between the two was one that made Riko feel an emotion that was a cross between guilt and fear.
Why guilt, you ask?
Two hours ago...
"Japanese... Japanese... Motherfuck, Japanese yet again..." Green eyes paused in scanning the shelves packed with a colourful assortment of magazines, peering closely at a volume with the words Shonen Weekly JUMP printed as the header. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the familiar shapes of what seemed to look like-, "ENGLISH! PRAISE THE HIGH HEAVENS!"
"SHH!"
A stern look from the person tending the cash register of the bookstore made the Varia assassin duck her head sheepishly. Turning back to the magazine, she gleefully pulled it out from where it was wedged between two Japanese volumes, and blissfully gazed at the recognisable text.
Oh yes, now to find out what happens next in Naruto...
"I see you're still illiterate, herbivore."
The name she was referred to with sent an ominous feeling of dread coursing through her veins. Of all places, why here?!
She settled a hard glare onto her face before turning around to face an impassive brunette looking down at her. "I see you're still xenophobic, Kyoya."
A glimmer of what seemed like amusement sparked in his cold, grey eyes. One hand shot out to yank the goggles she wore down her face, earning a displeased growl from the assassin. "Xenophobic? Me? Hardly." Came the derogatory sniff, "You, clearly of Japanese descent, are unable to read simple Japanese text. So, therefore, you are illiterate."
"What are you doing here anyway? Shouldn't you be off somewhere terrorising people and soliciting money from them?"
"I hate crowds."
The girl belatedly realized that, although partially obscured by the crossing of his arms across his chest, she could see some small volumes of novels in one of his hands. "Why, you actually have a hobby besides torturing people?" Her disbelief was only partially mocking - after all, it was hard for her to imagine Hibari doing anything in his free time. She mostly envisioned him lying in a darkened coffin, waiting for his next victim to pop up.
"I don't favor this tone you're adopting with me."
"S'alright. Lord knows that even the scariest people have weaknesses too."
"Me? Weak?" Ah, she had done it this time. His tone was venomous, and quivered with irritation. When would she learn that questioning Hibari Kyoya's strength would only land herself in a circle of Hell?
(Never.)
"You're optically challenged," Riko pointed out hastily, before realizing that it was actually true. Settling on Hibari's face again, she noticed that a pair of rectangular frames of black sat on the bridge of his nose, the lenses gleaming slightly from the glare of the overhead lighting of the bookshop. When on Earth had he started wearing them? "That's a weakness. New, is it?"
At the mention of his glasses, Hibari seemed irritated. "I can't see very well," Riko could swear that she almost heard a tone of resentment in his words.
She could not help the devious grin that spread across her face. This new piece of information suddenly opened a gateway of new ways to escape the great Demon of Namimori should he ever announce his intentions to 'bite her to death' again. Which was most likely going to be in the next five minutes, if she thought she knew him well.
"Are you intending to do something that will disturb the peace of Namimori?"
And he knew her well, too.
"Er, no."
It was quite disturbing and unnerving, really, how they knew each other so well.
"You know the repercussions of lying to me, don't you?"
She couldn't forget them, even if she wanted to.
"I do. And by the way, I wasn't planning anything to disturb the peace of your beloved Namimori. I was merely just about to make my way out and back home."
xxxx
A pair of green eyes darted back and forth, quickly scanning the text printed into speech bubbles that were skilfully drawn in amongst the characters drawn on the page inside the angular panels. The black-tinted goggles that Hibari had forcibly removed, hung forgotten around her neck as Riko absently brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes.
Her nose twitched at the strong smell of the grass she lay on. Instead of heading back like she had told Hibari, she had decided to stop by the grassy riverbank. It wasn't the best place to sit and read, but it sure as hell was quieter than the mansion, where she would otherwise be too preoccupied with her duties to fully indulge in the latest issue of JUMP.
Also, Hibari wasn't here, which was a bonus.
Flipping over to the next page, the assassin was at that moment, too enraptured in the October specials of horror comics to notice the shadow looming over her.
"Yang Riko."
Already in suspense from the horror comic, a high-pitched shriek erupted from the girl, as she visibly jumped from being startled. The magazine was sent flying a few feet away as she collided headfirst into a hard body, and face-planted onto an extremely displeased and disgruntled Hibari Kyoya.
At first, she groaned as she raised a hand to rub her sore nose, but a flash of red sent alarm bells ringing in her head. Slowly burying her face back into the crisp, thin cotton of his white button-down shirt, she became increasingly acutely aware of her current predicament.
Realizing she was on top of the person she feared the most, her fight-or-flight reaction broke almost immediately, and she stayed frozen where she was.
"Hey."
She remained very still.
"Do you want to be bitten to death?"
She continued her statue act, aware of the muscles that flexed beneath her face as Hibari attempted to move.
"Or are you enjoying this?"
"Absolutely fucking not!" She sat up immediately, glaring down at Hibari's expressionless face. "Hell nah!"
The both of them stayed with their gazes locked for a few heartbeats, before a chilling, "You're still on top of me." made the acrobat realize that she was, indeed, still on top of his legs.
She instantly stood up, and took a few steps away as the brunette pulled himself up and back into his feet. Bracing herself, she squeezed her eyes shut as she anticipated a hit from the infamously bad-tempered guardian.
And nothing happened.
Opening one eye reluctantly, Hibari seemed to have frozen where he stood. Was something wrong? Upon closer inspection, the girl could tell something was amiss.
The swinging of her goggles around her neck then made her realize what was missing. "Where are your glasses?"
She could literally feel herself getting into a sticky situation.
"I can't see very well."
"Oh, fuck me."
She couldn't very well leave him alone, could she? On one hand, she knew this was a golden opportunity to make a quick exit without the cloud guardian pursuing her immediately, but on the other hand, it would probably come to bite her back in the ass if she did. He would definitely pursue her no matter what and torture her into the ninth circle of Hell.
She shuddered at that thought.
"Er, shall I go look for them?"
Hibari seemed displeased at the notion of someone doing something for him in such a pitiful moment of weakness. "If you have to, bring me with you."
"No way in fuck. You can't even see!"
"I will not stand for a herbivore doing something to help me out of pity."
"Well, genius, and how the fuck are you going to help me look?"
"Guide me."
"Is your eyesight really that fucked up?"
Hibari gave no answer, and grabbed her wrist instead. "Let's go."
Riko shivered - in a bad way, of course. Was there any other way? - at the feeling of his large hand closing over her wrist entirely. Because of her long sleeves, there was no bare skin between them, but she could still feel the warmth radiating from his hand. She held back a snicker - and here she had assumed he was cold-blooded.
She wrestled her wrist out of his grip, and grabbed his wrist instead. "There is no way in fuck I'm letting you drag me."
Hibari seemed to not like the idea of her dragging him, either. He immediately pulled his wrist out of her hand.
"Well, Kyoya. Looks like we've reach a stalemate."
Instead of giving her a verbal reply, Hibari merely grabbed her wrist again. Maintaining the iron grip he had on her wrist as she struggled to pull it out of his hand, Hibari drew the other hand up and pulled the long sleeve that extended past Riko's hand down, rolling it up to her elbow. Her hand came into view, clad in a black fingerless glove that the prefect had seen before.
Riko widened her eyes in panic, thinking that Hibari was going to attempt to activate the blades in her glove. For what reason, she didn't know, but she sure as hell didn't want to find out. "H-Hey! Kyoya! Don't-!"
Instead, he slipped his hand into hers, sliding his fingers into the spaces between hers.
Her jaw dropped open in shock.
"'Cause the spaces between my fingers are right where yours fit perfectly…"
"NO!"
Hibari cast her a chilling look. "What is the problem?"
A hard blush came onto the acrobat's face, and she quickly turned away from the prefect's glare. Why on Earth had a cotton-candy, sugary love song started playing in her head like it was some sort of corny romcom movie!? Hibari Kyoya was anything but rom and com!
"Get a grip on yourself!" Riko mentally berated herself as she smacked her face with her free hand, "You were raised in Europe! Something like holding hands is child's play!"
"Herbivore…" the brunette's voice crawled down her spine, making her shudder inwardly, "I hate being made to wait."
He then squeezed the fingers in-between his.
"Fucking hell!"
And it was then that Yang Riko realised that Hibari Kyoya was definitely not romantic nor comedic, for it was not a gentle, intimate squeeze but a deathly vicegrip that had every intention of causing pain. Shooting a dark glare at the prefect, she could see a malicious smirk on his face, which proved her suspicion to be right. Hibari had meant for the hold he had on the girl to be a shackle of sorts; for him to feel in control. And boy, did he have it.
"Stop that! It hurts like a bitch!" the Chinese-Japanese hissed at the pain radiating from her fingers.
"Good. Now go find my glasses."
Grumbling and swearing under her breath, Riko reluctantly marched over to a patch of grass where her magazine had landed. If it had landed there, there was a chance that his glasses would have been there as well. Getting onto her knees, she started pushing the tall stalks of grass aside with her free hand, peering into shadowed patches as she searched for Hibari's glasses. Out of habit, she attempted to use her other hand to make her task easier, but a rough tug from Hibari stopped her from doing so.
The look she threw him was acidic. "If you're going to be a fucking hindrance, at least help me look for them!"
Cool grey eyes looked down at the girl. Scoffing, he said, "Help you look? I only said to bring me with you."
"Oh, right. You're fucking blind without your glasses, aren't you?"
Squeeze.
"Ow fuck! Okay! I get it! Stop it!"
After two hours of crawling through muddy patches of grass, Riko finally spotted a pair of familiar black frames lying a few feet away from her original search radius. She gleefully grabbed it, noting that there were no scratches, which meant Hibari wouldn't have another reason to torture her. Getting onto her feet, she turned around, ready to fling them back at their owner, when she realised two things.
1) Hibari Kyoya was reading a novel with tiny, tiny text.
2) He was doing so without his glasses.
"What the fuck? I thought you said you couldn't see without them!"
Upon hearing her outrage, Hibari merely snapped the book shut, and slid it into his pocket. Meeting the girl's furious gaze, he opened his mouth and said, "I've only said that I can't see very well. Did I ever mention that I couldn't see very well without the glasses?"
As she mentally paged back through the conversations she had with him today, she realised he was right. He had only said that he couldn't see very well. "Then you actually fucking meant that the glasses were the cause of your not being able to see very fucking well!?"
Pulling the culprit of Riko's misfortune out of her hand, Hibari held them up to his eyes. "My vision is perfect. I don't need these." he sniffed, putting them into his pocket.
"Then why the fuck were you wearing them!? And why the fuck did you make me guide you when you very fucking well didn't need to be!?"
A dark smile made its way across his face.
Then a lightbulb went off in Riko's head. "Y-you were just playing with me!"
Without another word (as usual), Hibari merely turned around and started walking away. Enraged, but exhausted, Riko could do nothing more except shoot daggers at his retreating back with her eyes. Why on earth had he gone out of his way to waste so much of his time just to bother her?
Sighing in defeat, she crumpled down, flopping back onto the grass. As she rubbed the dirt off her cheek with her gloved hand, she then held it up. The hand that had been suffering in Hibari's iron grip for two hours. It still ached from the periodic squeezing he had given her while she searched, and she noted this with a burning desire to take revenge on the merciless brunette.
"Fucking Kyoya..."
Let me know how you liked or disliked this chapter, or if you have any questions! I'll see you in the next chapter!
PS I know there was a mention of gloves and blades, and while that may confuse you for now (or not) I will be addressing this issue in a future chapter. (:
Delphoxi