Chapter 89
With New People
Sorry for disappearing for a week, I had two assignments and a presentation to do for this week. It took me the whole weekend to prepare for them all.
There will be a few OC characters- the first of which is introduced here- but they don't play a major part of the story. In this instance, she is merely there to represent the fanclub Tsunayoshi is starting to gain from the last chapter.
"Now listen up brats, I'm about to start the literature lesson."
Tsunayoshi perked up at the mention of literature, he actually knew what such a big word meant. Luce was very keen on books and reading, she spent a lot of her time reading, like just before bed. Many nights had been spent looking at picture books or her reading him a bed time story. Colonnello, Bermuda and Skull would often read to him too, usually dramatizing the story with actions and funny voices. Fon would read to him, in a more normal manner, as would Verde and even Lal (one mention of a princess and the book was thrown across the room). Viper wasn't very good at reading stories, she never made it very interesting, and he hadn't managed to make Reborn read him a book yet. Ever since he was five Luce had been teaching him to read letters and words. By now, at the big age of 5-and-a-half (you can't forget the half- big difference) he could read and write words and sentences in Italian- He'd had some very good teachers… if you forget about the bombs and the guns and the electric shocks. He was still working on his Japanese, but it was good enough for him to come here and learn as if he was any normal 5 year old Japanese student, at this school in a town called Namimori.
The school they were at was an unusual one. It took in 'special' children. Now the context of the word 'special' changed greatly depending on whether you were mafia-born or a civilian. If you were Mafia-born like Tsunayoshi, or Hayato or Basil, or Dino or any of Tsunayoshi's friends in Mafia Row, then being the child of a Boss made you special. If you were a civilian, then being special meant that one was smart, highly so, gifted, had a talent that had been head-hunted or that you were 'recommended' to come. Reborn hadn't been trying to be inspirational when he said that they were the 'future generation'. The civilians were also being trained, spotting useful talents for Families. Not all members of a Mafia Family did bad things, and not every human being was a good person.
"I'm going to give each of you a number and don't forget it. I don't want to have to do this more than once. These will be your groups for the lesson." Nezu-senei explains, before starting at the other side of the class, pointing to people whilst saying a number. When they finally got into groups, Tsunayoshi found himself with Kyoko, a boy with a weird apple hat, a girl with brown hair who looked bored and… disgusted? As well as a bright-eyed blond who kept on looking at him.
"H-hello, I'm Tsunayoshi," He introduces, smiling at the new people he didn't know.
"And I'm Kyoko, nice to meet you," She continues, bowing politely.
"Heya, I'm Emiko Hiwatari," Says the blond with enthusiasm that takes the pair back.
There is silence for a few seconds, the brunette obviously waiting for the hatted boy to go next, but since he doesn't make a sound, she soon rolls her eyes impatiently, sighing whilst she says, "I'm Hana Kurokawa." Tsunayoshi slides away from her slightly, since it seems like she's in a bad mood.
"…And you are…?" Tsunayoshi prompts, looking at the apple hatted male. He'd never seen a hat like that before- it was so big and tall. Luce's hat was big, but it didn't stand up like that. The boy underneath looks rather blankly ahead, not doing much other than rock on his chair.
After a rather extended wait, the boy finally says, "I'm me of course. Who else would I be?" The voice is as flat as his look currently is; he must be really really really REALLY bored!
"A-ha-ha" Tsunayoshi laughs nervously, "But what should we call you by?"
"You, boy who is too cute to be male, can call me Fran." The apple hatted boy explains, hands pulling on Tsunayoshi's cheeks as he talks.
"Hey, leave him alone!" Emiko shouts, slapping Fran's hands away.
"Can we just get on with this?" Hana asks, voice short and sharp, arms folded in annoyance. Tsunayoshi looks at her before deciding it would be a very good idea to get a move on, and quickly picks up the book they were supposed to be reading out loud to each other.
"Here Kyoko, why don't you go first?"
The lesson had flown by, although their reading wasn't exactly a normal one, not with Hana reading as fast as possible, Fran reading in a monotone and rather slow voice, Emiko reading with too much enthusiasm so that it sounded horrendous instead, and Tsunayoshi himself stuttering on a few words he didn't know. Kyoko was helpful enough to explain the symbols he didn't know- having learnt Japanese all her life, she knew more than he did. Although Tsunayoshi had to wonder whether his eyes had been playing tricks on him whilst Fran was reading out loud, for he swore that he could see the story being played out on the table before him, a cat and a dog appearing from nowhere, walking across the desk and disappearing off the other edge. The pictures are faint, ghostly even.
When they finish, he watches as Emiko bounces away over to a gaggle of girls all huddling together. He sees a few looking in his direction before giggling loudly and bursting into excited chattering. Another girl soon joins them- Tsunayoshi thinks she was in Enma's group- and the same thing happens: they all look towards Enma, blush and giggle before chattering. He shivers, getting a feeling like he wasn't safe. He glances over to Enma and sees that the boy feels the same, both looking at each other with confused fear in their eyes. At least they wouldn't leave the other to fend for themselves.
And eventually they change lesson (and for some odd reason, classroom too), this time to maths. At the word, an innate fear flashes through him, but he brushes it off as one of those weird yet wrong feelings. He actually liked maths, it was important to a lot of the Arcobaleno, like Viper for obvious reasons, Verde because it seemed like a lot of maths happened in science, Lal and Colonnello for keeping track of their supplies and finally Skull. Skull used maths to calculate the distances between ramps, taking into account the speed and weight of the bike, as well as his angle of trajectory. Verde had given him formulae to help incorporate the change that certain stunts would cause in this distance. It wasn't like he was going to find these things out by trial and error was it? This way was much safer… Okay, so maybe he did use trial and error before he met Verde, but that was beside the point.
Part way through the lesson Tsunayoshi gets bored and looks around the room- he already knew how to add numbers together, assuming that the answer was less than twenty- seeing what his friends were doing. Haru was listening to the teacher like a good student should, writing things down, as was Kyoko. From that he could see of the mechanics, they weren't listening at all, but instead drawing pictures, no doubt of robots or things to 'impress' Verde with, although he was sure he could see already finished worksheets to the side of the desk. Glancing to his right, he spots Hayato, who it currently writing with his left hand… but wasn't he right handed? Tsunayoshi watches for a few seconds, seeing Hayato swap hands, the pencil in his right, solve a math problem and then switch hands again before solving the next one. He'd have to ask Hayato later on why he was doing something like that.
Looking behind him, he sees that Takeshi has his arms on the table, his head on his arms and is… sleeping? How could he sleep during class?! Directly behind him is Enma, who looks highly confused and panicked. He keeps looking between the page and the teacher, eyes getting wider and wider with each switch of focus. Tsunayoshi thinks that maybe Enma is confused or lost. Behind Enma is Ken, who has his feet on the desk once more, leaning back precariously, trying to balance a pencil on his nose. Next to him, Chikusa is taking notes with one hand and bouncing the yoyo with the other. Somehow the yoyo never stops it's bouncing, the rhythm never fluctuating.
~Tap tap tap taptatap tatatap~
Trying to find the source of the tapping, Tsunayoshi soon pinpoints the culprit- Naito Longchamp. Although he didn't have any earphones in, Naito was still rocking his head forwards and backwards in time with the tapping of a pencil against the desk. Although it was surprising that the chair wasn't jumping around with how hard Naito seemed to be moving.
"Hey, you at the back! Stop making such a racket," The maths teacher complains, a rubber just missing Naito's head as the child does another head-banging movement. "Alright alright, don't get cha panties in a twist!" Naito laughs, hand flapping. The male teacher looks disgruntled before turning back to the board to continue explaining something. Naito does keep to his word, even putting the pencil down so he doesn't bang it against the table again. So instead, he plays some air-guitar.
As Tsunayoshi looks around the rest of the room, it suddenly becomes very clear who the civilians are and who is a mafia heir. Very few of the mafia children were actually doing any work. There are paper-planes being thrown, doodling, note passing and a whole range of activities taking place behind the teacher's back. Anyone who is caught gets a telling off and a rubber thrown at them. Tsunayoshi manages to avoid that fate, fearing more than anything that Reborn would walk in and catch him doing something naughty.
The building shakes and shivers, loud noises coming from upstairs. No one has a clue what made those noises though, but to Tsunayoshi it sounds like a lot of jumping around and maybe even something hitting the floor hard. The teacher ignores it, making it seem like a usual occurrence. He sees something move out of the corner of his eye, almost as if it was jumping past the window and upwards. He might have missed it if it wasn't a black shadow. It seems familiar somehow, but it passed by too quickly for him to notice. A few moments later, the banging stops.
"Stop staring at the ceiling, it's not going to fall down no matter how hard they try." The teacher orders, before muttering something about violent brats under his breath. Finally he puts his pen down and turns to the class. "Alright, you can pack up your stuff now and go to the end of the corridor for your science lesson. Although it'll be a little different from usual."
Tsunayoshi wonders what the maths teacher means by this whilst packing up all his pretty coloured pencils.
"Are you ready to go Tsunayoshi-sama?" Hayato asks, waiting patiently by his side as always.
"Yeah," Tsunayoshi nods, standing up. "Oh Hayato, what were you doing earlier, using both hands to write with?"
Hayato blushes at being caught, rubbing his neck in embarrassment. "It's so I can write more things down, or write down two different things at once. Lancia gave it a posh name when I talked to him about it once. Plus it also helps with my piano playing too. Shamal said it's good for fights too, since very few people expect to meet a left handed fighter, let alone one who can swap sides. If I can use either hand, I can hit more places or throw my dynamites more accurately into weird spaces. So I'm going to try really really hard to master it so I can protect Tsunayoshi-sama better."
Tsunayoshi smiles, "You don't have to do that for me you know Hayato." A few minutes later, Tsunayoshi regrets saying that, for Hayato has started to list off all the reasons that Tsuna is worthy of such treatment.
"Ne, Tsunayoshi-chan, science ain't going to be boring too is it?" Ken whines, walking behind the pair.
"I don't know, we'll just have to see," Tsunayoshi replies, it's not like he could tell the future or anything. Plus he was looking forwards to learning the subject that Verde lived and breathed. "Although the teacher said there was going to be something different about it. I wonder what that will be?"
One more setting up chapter as such, and then I'll be moving onto the more action/interesting stuff. This chapter was more to introduce Fran and Hana than anything, with a few hints of stuff to come placed here and there.
See you next time!
Phantom Hitman 1412
First Published: 28 March 2013