Thank you to all the reviewers! Your support makes me cry—in happiness, of course. And where did we leave off…? Oh yes, Reborn just saved Tsuna.
Oh, and by the way, to the user Mordacious Moratorium: I love your username! Does it mean something special?
Café Munio: Chapter 8
Tsuna was dead.
Metaphorically, of course. It didn't take much to reduce him to a mentally dead state these days—it had started ever since he began working at this blasted café.
Reborn was among the many things and people who could reduce him to a mentally and probably also physically incapable state, and here Tsuna realized that Reborn was angry.
Oh, he didn't look angry, but truly scary people didn't need words or expressions to seem angry. They just were.
It was a bad time for Tsuna to be alive.
The duo left the unimaginable events happening in the café behind as they entered the back room, and Reborn closed the door. He didn't lock it, because everyone saw Reborn enter the room, and everybody knocked if Reborn was in a room, regardless if the door was open or closed.
Tsuna vaguely noticed everyone shying away from the violently making out couple on a table as the door closed silently, which was unnerving.
In the books Tsuna read, doors always closed 'with an ominous click' when something bad was about to happen, but silent doors were even scarier.
It was even scarier due to the fact that the door closed with a click for everyone else. It seemed to be too scared of Reborn to make noise when closing.
Did Reborn strike fear even into inanimate objects?
Tsuna decided not to dwell too much on that subject and instead focus on the situation at hand.
Reborn had walked around the polished desk to the leather armchair and sat down. "Well?" He raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to sit?"
Tsuna hurried over to the cushioned chair in front of the desk, but Reborn quickly tsked and said, "No, not there, stupid. Here." And he gestured to his lap. Tsuna's face erupted in a flaming red, and he internally debated whether it would be a better idea to sit down and pretend he hadn't heard that, or walk over and sit.
"Are you going to run away?" Reborn had an amused smirk on his face (that sadist) that told Tsuna he knew exactly what Tsuna had thought.
He needed to learn how to cover up his emotions.
"Uh, no," Tsuna said, shivering a little as he stumbled past the desk and sat down where he was supposed to sit, trying not to look at anything.
"That's better, isn't it, Tsuna?"
"Yes?"
Lean arms circled around Tsuna's waist and pulled just tight enough to seem threatening, but not hurt him.
An observer from further away would see is as an affectionate gesture; someone closer would notice that Tsuna didn't seem to be breathing.
"What did you say?"
"Y-yes," Tsuna managed, because it was slightly hard to take when someone was squashing your stomach and the general area where your lungs were.
"That's better. Now, as I said, we need to have a small chat about what happened earlier."
"You mean with Hibari-san?"
"Yes." Reborn sounded distasteful, and it showed.
"O-oh. It was nothing, really," Tsuna tried. It didn't work, so he tried a different tactic. "I'm sure it won't happen again!"
"It shouldn't," Reborn's voice was dark, and boded nothing well for the said tonfa-wielding menace.
"A-ah, I'm sure it won't."
"If it does happen again, I'll blame it on you, Tsuna."
And that was the end of the small 'chat.' Twenty simple sentences, eighty-three words in three minutes and Tsuna basically had a death sentence.
Tsuna exited the room to see Hibari in the usual corner, Belphegor and Fran making out with vigor on a table, both without shirts, Yamamoto who was busily hanging a curtain around said couple and somehow managing not to look, Gokudera looking out the window and ignoring said baseball player, and Squalo who was chopping up onions in the air with his sword.
The swordsman stood by the counter and paid no mind to how the perfectly sliced onions landed on the counter in various perfect shapes and forms. He was scowling as he muttered something under his breath, "…must have destroyed half the mansion… damn boss… useless bastard…goddamned idiots…stupid paperwork…"
But he did so in Italian, and Tsuna didn't understand a word.
Fon was collecting the sliced vegetables on platters, looking pleased as he passed them through the kitchen window to Verde and placed a new platter on the counter at the same time. Verde stored everything in a huge fridge as he retrieved more platters from a cabinet.
Tsuna noticed the racks and racks of vegetables, and inspiration struck. (He asked Lal about it, and thus was how Create Your Own Meal Day came into being.)
"Yo, Tsuna!" Yamamoto finished curtaining off the—area—from public view and walked over to watch Squalo slice vegetables with a kind of ferocity you rarely saw in anything except… well, Squalo.
"I guess the typhoon hasn't stopped, huh?" Tsuna said weakly, sitting down on a chair and curling his legs up.
"Nope! If anything, I think it's worsened," Yamamoto informed him cheerily. "Oh, and Shoichi-kun is building something really cool over there!"
"Irie…? Oh!" The engineer had been so quiet that Tsuna hadn't noticed him when he first came out of the room. He panned his gaze across the café, so see the red-head in one of the corners, tinkering with something. "I wonder what he's making?"
"It flies!" the baseball player grinned, "Shoichi-kun tested it out just now. It has these awesome rotating blades! I think that he said it was 'for the café,' or something."
"I guess I should check if it's dangerous, just in case," Tsuna said with a sigh, and made his way over to the little corner. "Shoichi-kun?"
Naturally, the engineer didn't answer. Tsuna tried again, "Shoichi-kun?"
There was no response, so Tsuna thought, well, drastic times take drastic measures, or something like that.
Tsuna picked up the lid of a pot, which had somehow made its way onto one of the café's tables, and a spoon, took a deep breath, and banged the two together while bellowing, "SHOICHI-KUN!"
The red-head nearly jumped out of his seat and spun around to throw the hammer he was holding straight at Tsuna.
Unfortunately for the brunette, Shoichi had extremely good aim, and the hammer collided straight with his nose and sent him reeling back into a table, yelling in pain.
"Oh! I'm sorry, Tsuna-kun! I was… a bit startled," Shoichi said sheepishly, kneeling down to help Tsuna back to his feet. "I hope your nose is okay."
"Y-yeah, it's fine," Tsuna said, wincing, as he massaged his nose tenderly. "O-ow…"
"Did you need something, Tsuna-kun?"
"A-ah, I was just coming over to check what you were building," Tsuna explained.
"Oh! This is one of my new inventions! The typhoon was probably going to last quite a bit," Tsuna groaned internally at this, "So I decided to build something that would be beneficial to the café, as thanks for letting me stay here for the duration of the storm."
"Oh?" Tsuna asked, intrigued. "What does it do?"
"So far it does a mixture of all sorts of different things, like blending, heating up, or creating swirls for cupcakes or ice cream," Shoichi listed, "It's kind of like Spanner's mini Mosca."
"What's a mini Mosca?"
"I forgot you've never seen it! It's the cutest machine, really. Perhaps I'll be able to persuade Spanner to bring mini Mosca here one day."
"That'd be nice, thank you."
Once he was certain that the machine was relatively harmless (or as harmless as something that could chop, blend, and grate at the same time could be), Tsuna left the engineer to his own business and went back to the counter.
"It's quite cute, hey?" Colonello said from where he was waiting, lazily stirring a cup of coffee. "One of Verde's 'unacceptable' creations," he explained, noticing Tsuna's confused gaze. "Perfectly fine for us normal folk, but way below Reborn's standards. He deemed it suitable for someone like me to drink."
"Ouch," Tsuna said sympathetically. "Reborn definitely has his own brand of insults."
"Definitely," Colonello agreed. "Ah, that light needs fixing!" He grabbed a toolbox and jogged over to one of the decorative lights on the walls, which had blinked unsteadily a few times and gone out.
"Let me see," the blonde muttered under his breath, just as all the lights flickered and died. The café was instantly plunged into darkness, and the streetlights outside went out as well.
"Power shortage!" Colonello announced. "We'll be bringing out the glow sticks."
"Shouldn't we be using candles? Glow sticks don't really light up anything, do they?" Tsuna whispered as Colonello passed by.
"Ah, we would have on a normal occasion, but it's a bit risky around these guys, isn't it?" Colonello whispered that with a soft chuckle.
"Glow sticks!" Yamamoto whooped as Colonello set an entire box of a hundred differently colored glow sticks on a table.
Glow sticks were addicting stuff. There was something immeasurably interesting about sticks of colored light that just glowed, and soon everyone, even Hibari, found themselves outfitted in multiple glow sticks.
"Oooh, the prince likes this one," Belphegor cackled, waving an abnormally long green glow stick around. He looped it through his belt loops as a very bright belt, and grinned as he hopped onto a table. "The prince rules all!" he announced.
Fran set a blue tiara onto his head. "The prince rules all of nothing," he said.
"Why, you…! Take that off at once! The prince doesn't allow a lowly peasant to wear a tiara grander than his own!"
And here Tsuna thought the prince's tiara was made of real diamonds… but he himself would prefer a glowing blue circle over something valuable any day. I'd change colors every day, Tsuna mused to himself. Maybe there'll be glow-in-the-dark royal shoes?
Everyone knew then that Reborn had exited the back room, because firstly, there was a sudden cold presence in the room. Secondly, they noticed the glowing strip of orange around his fedora.
"Reborn! Your hat glows in the dark?" Tsuna asked in amazement.
"Only this one," he smirked.
"My bandana glows, too!" Colonello added, and then everyone noticed the strip of dark green around his head.
"Ha, look at this!" Yamamoto exclaimed, dragging something out of the half-empty box.
"Coo-oo-ool." It was a flat, ten-meter-long strip of glowing ribbon, with differently colored sections.
"Let's tie it into knots!"
"Let's string it around the café!"
"Let's wrap Tsuna in it!"
Strangely, everyone immediately agreed to the last one.
"W-what? Why me?!"
It didn't take a long time, because it was eight to one after all. "Mmph!" Tsuna protested angrily, as the glowing ribbon was long enough to make him look like a walking lightbulb.
"Let's take a picture," someone suggested, and they assembled around Tsuna as Colonello arranged the camera stand.
It blinked for ten seconds before the shutter clicked, taking dozens of photos.
Everyone rushed to the camera, but Reborn was the first there and everyone settled for peering over his shoulder as they scrolled through the pictures.
"Haha, you can't see any of us!"
"Tsuna outshines even the prince! Not fair!"
"Fake prince-senpai's teeth glow in the dark."
"Ah, I'll post this on my blog! What do you think should be the title?"
"Tch."
The group oohed and aahed over the photos, giving their own opinion every once in a while, as Tsuna struggled to get out of the glowing ribbon.
The storm lasted all the way until morning. By that time, everyone was asleep, slumped over chairs, on tables, or on the floor. The morning sun dawned bright and early, too bright and too early, and the first to wake up was Reborn, but nobody noticed him sleeping in the first place. That meant the first person to actually wake up was Colonello.
"RISE AND SHINE, YOU LAZY HEAPS OF BONES!" he roared, taking great pleasure in watching everyone bolt up.
"WHAT DO THINK YOU'RE DOING, BASTARD?!"
"WHO ARE YOU TO WAKE THE PRINCE HIMSELF, DIRTY COMMONER?!"
"It's far too early to be up."
"VOIII! YOU LITTLE BRAT!"
(The author felt the need to put this in bold and italics in order to emphasize the fact that it was louder, louder than all the others.)
*Unintelligible garbles*
"Mmph," Tsuna complained.
That brought everyone's attention over to him, and Yamamoto said in surprise, "The ribbon's still glowing!"
"Mmph mm mmmmMM mm!" That would have translated to "Get me out of here, you idiots!" except there was no way of understanding.
Tsuna was frustrated, to say the least.
The typhoon was over, but Fon had offered free breakfast, so everyone stayed.
"We have cream or chocolate filled croissants," the Chinese chef said pleasantly, "But we also have miso soup, rice, and tamagoyaki, which is rolled omelet."
"Tamagoyaki?" Fran mused tonelessly. "I'd like that, please."
"Tsuna's mama makes the best omelets!" Yamamoto said with a cheery, if slightly sleep deprived, grin.
"Mm mm mmph," Tsuna agreed, which would have been 'that she does,' if the ribbon wasn't still there.
"How good are your croissants?" Belphegor asked brashly. "The prince demands a good breakfast for his royal appetite, in compensation for his lost sleep!"
"Oh, we have good croissants," and with that Fon set a basket down on the table. "Your omelet will be ready in a few minutes."
Belphegor grabbed a croissant and stuffed it in his mouth.
"Well, how is it?" Fon inquired.
Belphegor said nothing.
"I'll pay your compliments to the chef," Fon said briskly in that ever-calm tone of his, then walked away.
Belphegor snatched the whole basket.
Breakfast was a wonderful affair, and Fon sent Tsuna a wink that indicated he had saved some for the poor boy—who was still tied up in the glowing ribbon.
Shoichi noticed this. "Uh, guys, I think we should help Tsuna-kun out of the ribbon. Sorry, Tsuna-kun, I forgot about your situation!"
Tsuna tried to shrug.
Shoichi undid the knot, and the rest of the ribbon unraveled easily.
"Ah, that's better," Tsuna sighed, voice slightly raspy from hours of silence. "O-ow, my shoulder!"
"Terribly sorry, Tsuna-kun," Shoichi apologized, before checking his phone. "Ah! The internet's up again! Spanner needs something at the workshop—I've got to go! Bye, Tsuna-kun!"
The three Varia members were long since gone. Squalo had left after breakfast (he had insisted to pay, because he was that type of person, and a good, respectable one at that), and dragged the other two with him by their expensive tailor-made collars. He stormed out of the door, muttering in Italian again about 'management problems, bastard of a boss, and Varia Quality, my ass!'
But it was in Italian, so Tsuna didn't understand a word.
Saturday was the day of the scheduled Create Your Own Meal Day that Tsuna had thought of, and informed Lal about.
"Be early!" she barked. "Or else…."
Hanging threats were the worst kind of threats, especially when they came from a person who could probably—no, definitely—carry out those threats.
The posters that Lal had somehow managed to whip up in a day were put all over the town. People would be provided with seaweed (if they wanted to make sushi), cutlery, cutters with fancy shapes (if they wanted carrots in the shape of rabbits and the like), and lots of different foods.
The staff was to arrive early to set up everything.
Tsuna gaped at how the regular round tables had been swapped out in favor of long wooden tables and benches, and when he asked Colonello about where the old tables had gone, he laughed and said, "Only Lal knows."
Yamamoto had offered to come and teach people how to make sushi! That was probably why there was a sudden influx of customers, and a lot of little kids. Their parents probably hoped that their little angels would be able to grow up and become an aspiring sushi chef, and make a lot of money (some of which would be transferred to their parents, given their retirement).
Yeah, it was a good plan.
Tsuna waited at the side and checked for fallen cutlery as Yamamoto enthusiastically demonstrated from the counter how to properly wrap sushi.
It was a success! People came to make breakfast, lunch, dinner and even afternoon tea. Tsuna paid attention during some of the demonstrations, because Fon was teaching how to make good crepe and crepe was one of the few things Tsuna wouldn't mess up while making.
By the end of the day, Tsuna had picked up thirteen fallen cutlery, wiped the tables twenty-seven times, cut up seventy-two vegetables, and slipped three times while mopping the floor.
"We should have a Create Your Own Meal Day more often," Lal said thoughtfully. "Another one of your ideas. Great job, Sawada!"
And the following weeks passed without major incident.