Well here we are! Chapter 4.

Hopefully this project isn't too bad so far. I just love all of the animals so I just had to write this project out. I can only hope that this project isn't too dry. It may be towards the beginning but I'm thinking it will get better towards the end.

I can only wish for the best!

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. WHOO!

Chapter 4- Gokudera: The Lonely Soul

Haru was in her room reading some books and studying. Her parents knew that she was being home tutored by Reborn, but they didn't know that Reborn had disappeared just yet.

She took it upon herself to study on her own, and sometimes even Lal Mirch tried to help her study as well.

The animals were getting accustomed to living at the house with Haru and were learning how to behave and not cause too much trouble for the both of them so Haru had more time to study.

Haru had been diligently working for a few hours when she decided that she was done for the day. It wasn't healthy to study too much after all; it was too overwhelming for the brain which could end up with her forgetting everything she was trying to learn.

That isn't any good progress at all, so Haru put away her books and she decided to walk downstairs to see if there was anything that she could do.

It was perhaps mid-afternoon right about now and she hadn't seen the animals for maybe a few hours and she was a bit worried about how they were doing.

They were being… rather quiet and well-behaved. By now Uri was going to start badgering her for attention or she would be starting a fight with someone at this point.

Haru stared at the door to her room not hearing a thing.

No little claws scratching at her door, no animals groaning in pain or anger.

"Bark bark bark!"

"Gao! Gao!"

"Moouuuu!"

There it was.

"Hai hai, Haru is coming." Haru sighed walking out of her room expecting to see a big fight having erupted in the living room or something but instead she saw someone playing around with all of the animals in her stead.

In front of her, she saw the ever so tempermental storm guardian, Gokudera Hayato himself.

What was he doing here?

"Gokudera? What are you doing here?" She questioned him.

Gokudera stopped playing with the animals and he turned around to look at her.

"Hmph, I'm free right now so I thought that I might as well come and try to help you out this once." He huffed a simple answer.

Haru was still more than happy to know that she was receiving a bit of help today; even if it was very uncharacteristic of the person who offered to help.

She smiled at him and nodded her head. "Alright, thank you for wanting to help out Gokudera." Haru giggled kneeling down to the ground and both Uri and Natsu ran towards her and hopped into her lap- that is until Uri kicked him off.

"Now now Uri-" "Kora! Uri! You can't do that to Juudaime's box animal! He's your boss!" Gokudera shouted at his box animal.

Uri in retaliation hissed, jumping up onto Gokudera's face and proceeded to claw at his face.

Haru nervously looked around the room for something to quell Uri's anger with, and she was carefully watching Natsu who was looking for a hiding place to hide at because of Uri's rather violent actions towards him.

Oh my, things were still as busy and troublesome as always.

"A-Ano, Uri-chan, come on, come here. Haru has a little treat for you." She said holding up a small mackerel between her fingers.

Uri hopped off Gokudera's face and hopped towards Haru waiting for her to drop the fish for her to enjoy.

Haru sighed and she dropped the fish, and picked up a small ball from the couch and she whistled. "Come on out Natsu~ Let's play ball together." Haru called out.

Natsuo peeked out from beneath the couch and he crawled out appearing between Haru's feet.

"Gao Gao."

Haru smiled bouncing the ball off the ground.

Natsu started to run in circles trying to catch the ball but it was a bit fast for him and the polished wooden floors were a bit slippery, and he was sliding everywhere.

Haru giggled and she tossed the ball into the hallway and she watched as Natsu and Jirou went running after the ball.

She watched as the two of them rolled around on the ground trying to get the ball, playing with one another, wrestling for fun.

The other animals were either napping or doing their own thing.

"So, are you here because Tsuna-san told you to be here?" She asked, being a bit suspicious of his coming to help her.

Gokudera huffed to himself, grumbling.

Pushing his hands into his pockets, hunching his back a bit, one of his quirks when annoyed at someone or something, Haru guessed that she either hit the spot or she was dead wrong.

"I just felt like helping okay? You don't have to psychoanalyze me or anything you know." Gokudera hissed.

Haru grinned and nodded her head not wanting to say anything else to aggravate him anymore than he already was.

Gokudera was always a funny character, pretending to be angry at times when he was really just a bit shy.

Haru walked into the kitchen to take a look at things.

Lal Mirch was already in the kitchen with a clip board at hand taking inventory of the supplies that they had.

"We have everything Haru, no problems at all. We have enough to last till the end of the week. We will have to go shopping next weekend." She said.

Haru nodded her head watching as Gyuudon was sleeping on the floor, next to where his food was usually given to him.

Noticing where Haru's gaze landed, Lal Mirch had a good guess as to what Haru was thinking to herself.

"I had Gyuudon go down to the basement and move around. He got his exercise for today. I trained all of the animals and gave them a good work out while you were studying." Lal Mirch told her.

Haru sighed in relief unsure of how she'd be able to handle all of those animals if she had to do that.

Luckily she had Lal Mirch with her to make her job a bit easier.

Gokudera was looking over the check list that was taped onto the wall to see what they had to do every day.

Feed all off the animals, make sure they got some exercise, clean up after them, play with them, and a ton of other things on the list.

"Wow that's a lot." Gokudera said realizing just how much work they had dumped onto Haru and Lal Mirch.

Haru shook her head and sat in a chair, resting in it.

It was a lot of work for her and it always tired her out, but the way she saw it, she was the one that would probably most suit this job, and she did have fun with it at least.

"RRYYA!"

"G-Ga-gao!"

"Ng-iing!"

Oh dear, that was Uri acting up again.

It sounds as if she caught up with Natsu and Jirou and proceeded to bully them.

Haru was about to get up from her seat when Gokudera told her that he could handle it.

She remained seated like she was told nervously, wondering if this was truly the best choice of action for her to be making. She wanted to be able to trust him though so she waited in her seat, only thinking about the possibilities of how Gokudera would solve this mess.

"Ryaa! Rya Ryaa! Phhfft pphffft!"

Upon Uri's hissing, Haru pushed herself out of the seat to see what was going on.

Gokudera was sitting down with a cat toy in his hand and Uri was jumping around trying to bite the cat toy but Gokudera would always pull it away from her, playing around with her.

Uri was attacking the furry cat tail looking toy, hissing in frustration at how she couldn't quite get a hold of the toy.

Natsu and Jirou were back to playing ball together, passing it to one another.

Haru watched as Gokudera played with Uri silently with a small smile on his face.

'So this was the reason why Gokudera wanted to help out. He wanted to see Uri and play with her.' Haru mentally giglged to herself.

"You know, you are free to come and play with Uri any time you want to." She told him trying to stifle back a small laugh.

Nothing would get past Haru, she knew that of the toys that they had in the house, the toy he was holding was not one of the ones they had. It was a toy that he brought along with him.

She didn't miss the treats that he laid out right next to him either.

It seemed as though he did like Uri and did miss playing with her every once in a while.

Even though she was always clawing at his face and he'd be shouting verbally abusive words towards her, he would always look after her, care for her, and play with her.

He really did care.

'Perhaps… Gokudera isn't the barbarian Haru thought he was. He has a sweet side to him as well.' Haru thought as she watched the way he gave Uri special treatment.

Gokudera stopped the toy from moving and Uri stole the toy running off into the hall with her prize.

"D- Idiot! I didn't come here to play with Uri. Why would I do that? You need your eyes checked." Gokudera huffed, yelling at her defensively.

Normally Haru would get offended and fight back, but… she had this feeling that this is how he acted when he was embarrassed.

"Hai, hai, if you say so Gokudera." Haru giggled.

"Kora! Stop laughing at me you stupid woman! I didn't come here to just see Uri!"

Haru grinned at Gokudera, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen.

"Gokudera, I never said that." She smirked.

He didn't say anything, being silent as he realized that he dug himself into a corner.

He just grunted, picking up another ball and threw it into the hallway to have Jirou and Natsu run after it as if to disguise the fact that he was giving Uri special treatment.

HOPE YOU LIKED IT!

ALRIGHT~! I know for the most part, a lot of my readers are either Gokudera x Haru fans, or Hibari x Haru fans as those two are winning in the poll on my profile.

For the Hibari x Haru fans, Hibari makes his appearance in the next chapter! Yay! Finally! I know, lol.

Look forward to it!

Until next time!

-Neospice12