[KHR] Of Kittens & Cockroaches
This one- shot is directly related to my main multi-chapter story (this takes place before "T.R.R.o.R." and the canon TYL Arc) but I think it's fine if you don't read "T.R.R.o.R.", since this one- shot can pretty much stand alone.
Before anybody points out to me that Uri 'hates' Gokudera, I'm basing this on my version of the relationship between Uri and the adult Gokudera in "T.R.R.o.R."
I hope this half- assed attempt to get rid of writer's block doesn't flop too badly.
Disclaimer: Don't own anything, 'cept my laptop... but I don't get it back until the... end of this week...? TT-TT
Warning: Spoiled cat... kitten... cuteness!
Note: The characters have never been to the future. This happened in the past of their adult versions in TYL Arc.
Of Kittens and Cockroaches
Written: Wednesday, May 28, 2008, 12:04:44 PM
Edited: Thursday, July 24, 2008, 06:53:14 PM
STANDBY FOR TRANSMISSION OF DECLASSIFIED ARCHIVE FILE 001
Time: 02:56:45 PM
Location: Reference Room, Underground Vongola Base, Namimori City, Japan
Note: Recreation hours
Archive Summary: Observations of Tenth Vongola Guardian of Rain
Archive File Status: Downloading 89.57465784 percent complete...
BEGIN TRANSMISSION OF DECLASSIFIED ARCHIVE FILE 001
During the lazy recreation hours, Yamamoto would sometimes wander around the base, looking for something to do or someone to play catch with.
After nearly ten years, he had still not given up his love for baseball. Being a full- time Mafioso may have demanded a majority of his time... but he could still somehow find the opportunity for the occasional game of catch with other baseball- loving Vongola subordinates.
...If there were still any left...
Strangely enough, anyone whom he had managed to get to play catch with him would either run or duck for cover whenever he threw the ball... or else drop to the floor and cower with their arms covering their heads.
'That's not how you should play catch,' Yamamoto would often tell the unfortunate, trembling, random subordinate he'd managed to rope into playing once he ceased throwing the baseballs. (But he never caught any back... Nobody could seem to catch any of his pitches so they couldn't throw any balls back).
Recently though, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find someone to play a decent game of catch with.
So this was what brought Yamamoto to the area outside the reference room of the underground base. He opened the door and peered inside, hoping to find someone whom he could still interest in a game of catch.
But instead of finding any of Tsuna's other lower- ranking subordinates, he found the room occupied by very engrossed Italian- Japanese Mafioso.
Yamamoto supposed whatever Gokudera was reading right now, it was chock- full of scientific, technical, or whatever other headache- inducing things that he couldn't be bothered to try comprehending. He had once tried picking up and reading one of Gokudera's thick books but immediately gave up ten minutes into it. Baseball, his sword style and the Vongola were more than enough for him to understand and those, Yamamoto thought, were all he needed to understand.
Best leave the head- ache inducing reading to Gokudera.
At least it was a little safer than his other form of recreation hours entertainment: conducting explosive experiments and developing new techniques in his Storm Room.
Yamamoto thought the man just loved to tinker with his Sistema C.A.I. a little too much sometimes. He sometimes wondered how and why was it that Gokudera still hadn't lost an arm or a leg what with the constant hazard his choice of weaponry posed to him.
Either way, Yamamoto thought it was better that the man was alive and the one blowing things up instead of the one being blown up.
But then that's just how Gokudera is...
Gokudera's former 'tutor' (Gokudera would protest that he didn't learn anything from him), the genius hit man, Dr. Shamal or Trident Shamal flirts with countless women. Meanwhile, his student courts a more dangerous infatuation: Gokudera flirts with danger and death.
Yamamoto wasn't too fond of flirting with death himself. He knew better than to go and ask Gokudera to join him in a game of catch (he's not that much of an idiot, mind you).
After nearly ten years of knowing the man, he had never succeeded to proving to his friend the thrill and beauty of baseball.
Likewise, Gokudera had never proven to him just what was so fun and thrilling in constantly putting yourself in danger was, intentional or otherwise.
Well, to each his own...
Actually, Gokudera is like a cockroach [1], Yamamoto thought.
Not that he thought he was a pest (Gokudera was the one who thought of him that way).
It was because of his incredible staying power.
How many times has it been that Gokudera has nearly died?
You'd think that you've killed him once and suddenly he's back with a vengeance. (Or does Gokudera really just have a lot of luck... any kind of luck: dumb luck, good luck, hell, even bad luck... tucked in under his belt along with all that dynamite? Maybe it's that red Storm wave energy in him... Heck, the Chinese thought red was lucky...[2])
Yamamoto had heard once that cockroaches are the only living things that can actually survive a nuclear war.
After everything they'd been through in the last few years... Since Tsuna had started working as a real mafia boss... It's quite miraculous that Gokudera is still alive and kicking (and smoking) given his near 'kamikaze- in- Tenth's ‑ name' disposition.
Yamamoto was pretty sure that Gokudera would be able to get out of a nuclear war alive... and with Tsuna in tow (because no way in the seven depths of Hell would Gokudera ever let Tsuna die in something that he had the balls to scoff at and call 'so pathetically stupid').
Therefore, Yamamoto decided, Gokudera is like a cockroach.
The Guardian of Storm's only other companion in the reference room before Yamamoto arrived was yet another reason why he had likened his friend to one.
"Uri" is a rather strange name for one's animal box weapon.
But once again... to each his own...
Uri's very realistic kitten- like behavior often reminded Yamamoto of the stray kitten he used to see in his backyard [3] when he was in his first year of middle school.
Sometimes, after giving it some scraps to eat after dinner, the kitten would run up to him with a cockroach (presumably from next door; "Takesushi" never has any household pests, that's bad for business) and proceed to play with it. It would paw and bat at it; sometimes chasing it around the backyard if it got away.
Yamamoto used to watch to make sure that the cockroach wouldn't escape into the sushi restaurant. And also especially because the kitten was so cute and amusing.
One day he had finally worked up the nerve to ask his old man if he could keep the kitten.
'It's a good cockroach catcher,' he had said.
'Sorry, Takeshi, we can't keep a cat,' his old man reminded him. They lived in a sushi restaurant and his old man wasn't willing to risk the premium tuna and salmon he used to make their menu. 'But you could try finding the kitten a good home. Why don't you ask one of your friends if they can keep it? That way you can see it whenever you come over to their place.'
Well, he went over to Tsuna's place a lot but wasn't sure how Tsuna took to cats. It was pretty crowded at his place too, since Bianchi, the kids and Tsuna's mom also lived there.
Yamamoto didn't even know where Gokudera had lived at that time... and he still didn't know to this day... It was also highly unlikely that Gokudera would ever ask Yamamoto to come over to wherever he lived for any reason. (He never invited Tsuna to his place either, always preferring to go wherever Tsuna was himself).
A little after that father and son talk, the kitten never showed up in his backyard again.
Yamamoto was a little disappointed.
That stray kitten was one of his favorite things but he cheered himself up with the thought that it might have found a home, someone to feed it, play with it and love it forever and ever...
'Hahaha...' He thought. 'I was such a kid then.'
Back to the subject of likening to Gokudera to a cockroach: the animal box weapon was sitting on its master's left shoulder, seemingly uninterested in whatever its master was currently engrossed in.
Gokudera had grown out his hair, long enough to pull it into a short ponytail that hung up to his shoulders, in an effort to refute Dr. Shamal's claim that he was imitating his hairstyle again. He had also suggested that if he really wanted to be more like him, he should start hitting on "more" women on a more regular basis.
It'll be easy with his looks, according to the good doctor.
Gokudera had responded to that by flipping him his middle finger and setting the grown- up version of his animal box weapon on him.
Then he watched the 'Genius Hit Man' get pummeled and maimed with a smug, satisfied grin and a bowl of popcorn (Yamamoto had wondered where he had gotten it from).
Needless to say the subject of Gokudera becoming Shamal's near- clone- slash- 'successor' wasn't brought up by anyone for a very long time.
If Yamamoto thought that Uri acted so similarly to that stray kitten from nearly ten years ago, then Gokudera must be like the cockroach:
Uri's current form of amusement was pawing and batting at the man's head. Its current antics also involved pulling a few locks of gray hair out of the low ponytail.
Since Uri was activated, Yamamoto immediately assumed that Gokudera must be doing one of his self- training exercises again: Gokudera would sometimes let Uri out of its box for long periods of time, with the objective of prolonging his ability to produce a flame.
It seemed to be working.
When he first started out, he would sometimes collapse from exhaustion. Eventually he got better at it and could keep Uri activated for longer periods of time. He even progressed to utilizing his animal box weapon for 'other' purposes aside from fighting (Yamamoto suppressed a shudder at the memory of the last time Dr. Shamal had pissed Gokudera off and Tsuna's twenty- fourth birthday party).
Gokudera's current record of keeping Uri outside its box was nearly five hours.
Well, it also looked like he was working to break that record since the timer sitting on the stack of books on the table was showing that it had been activated for nearly three hours, thirty- eight minutes, three seconds and four nanoseconds and still counting...
Yamamoto wondered if it was a good idea to go in and let Gokudera know he was here. He hesitated because this set- up almost looked like that it was also a sort of endurance training for Gokudera: Uri's mischievous behavior would have normally merited an angry scolding from its master... or perhaps that was just when they had company.
Yamamoto stayed at the reference room door for at least three more minutes, watching the odd pair inside the room.
Gokudera seemed to have finally enough of Uri playing with his hair. He reached up and plucked the kitten- sized weapon off his shoulder and set it on the desk beside his book.
Uri lay down on its belly beside the book, sniffing curiously at the text written on it; its long tail swishing back and forth as Gokudera fixed his ponytail.
Gokudera then propped his head on his left hand and resumed reading. This time however, he began to stroke the fur on Uri's back and scratch the back of its ears with his other hand.
Yamamoto could almost swear he saw a corner of Gokudera's mouth quirk upwards in a smile when Uri closed its eyes as it purred and arched into its master's fingers. This went on for a few seconds before Uri yawned and curled up beside Gokudera's book to catnap.
The scene looked just too peaceful and quite a private one. Yamamoto decided that he shouldn't disturb it by letting Gokudera know he was there.
His thoughts wandered back to the stray kitten he used to see in his backyard in middle school.
Come to think of it, the time that kitten disappeared was around a few weeks or maybe a month after Gokudera moved to Japan to join Tsuna's Family permanently.
Yamamoto found himself wondering: What if it was Gokudera who had been the one who found that kitten? Perhaps he may have taken very good care of it, seeing how he treated his kitten- like box weapon so well.
But maybe that was just wishful thinking.
He'd never known if Gokudera actually kept any pets during middle school.
He never mentioned anything (at least to Yamamoto) about his home life.
At that time, he had just moved to Japan and was most likely adjusting to life there and the Vongola. He might not have had the time to bother with taking care of a pet.
Gokudera then was too focused on getting stronger and becoming a reliable Right hand man to Tsuna (not that it was any different now).
No, Gokudera probably didn't have time for a kitten, Yamamoto concluded.
But it might have been good for Gokudera to have had a pet: when they were in middle school, (as far as Yamamoto knew) he never made any friends outside of their Family.
Having a pet might have expanded Gokudera's world outside of the mafia a little more, in Yamamoto's opinion. He supposed Uri was the closest thing to a pet Gokudera could get in these times and given their line of work.
Yamamoto then decided to leave them alone and look for someone else to invite to play a game of catch.
Maybe he could convince Tsuna to play catch with him... if he had finished packing for the trip to Italy, and wasn't busy, that is.
Hayato thought he heard the door to the reference room click shut.
'Must be one of the lower ranks,' He mused.
The lower ranking subordinates of the Tenth seem to have a tendency of backing and keeping out of his way whenever they saw him.
Hayato supposed it was better that way. He wasn't one to be buddy- buddy with everybody anyway. It helps in reminding every member in this Family their respective places.
(The lower ranks also tended to do that with Hibari but Hayato was a more regular presence. He wondered what the Hell that bastard was up to lately and which asshole of the Earth he crawled into that made him so fucking impossible to locate and contact.)
When he noticed Uri napping, he decided to withdraw his hand from stroking the yellow and white fur so he could hold his book up and read more comfortably again.
He glanced at the timer he had placed on top of his books: it looked like it would still be a while before he could break his record of keeping Uri active for more than five hours.
He then pulled out of his pocket his cell phone and opened one of its specially customized applications. It was directly linked to his computer back in his office.
Hayato had been waiting for his system scanning program to finish locating areas of the Vongola database that had been targeted by a hacking attempt the other week. It had been bugging him since it was difficult to get a trace on who could have been responsible for the hacking attempt.
Who on fucking Earth would be so stupid to try and hack the Vongola where he could pick up a trail with his difficult- to- pass firewalls and other digital security measures?
Hayato was too busy perusing the information on his cell phone that he'd failed to notice that Uri had woken up from its catnap. Apparently it did not like the sudden absence of its master's petting.
"OUCH! Uri, what the Hell!?" Hayato yelped when his animal box weapon suddenly scratched at the cell phone and his hand. The cell phone was knocked away from him and onto the table. Uri then began to paw and scratch (claws mercifully sheathed) at his arm, mewling to be given attention again.
"Che, you spoiled cat. Are you sure you're not a reincarnation of that kitten I used to keep in middle school?" Hayato muttered, picking it up and holding it up in front of him at arm's length.
"Mew... nyao!"
"Well, you sure as Hell act just like it." Hayato frowned disapprovingly at it.
"Meow..." Uri wiggled out of his grip and landed gracefully on his lap, purring as it nuzzled against his chest.
"Quit playing with my hair already; I'm not a cockroach you can amuse yourself with!" Hayato frowned even more when Uri reached up to play with his hair again. Uri responded to his scolding by purring and nuzzling against him again.
Hayato sighed in exasperation. "Fine, be that way... crazy cat." He stood up after letting Uri hop back onto his shoulder and clamber on top of his head. "Let's go see if the scanning software's come up with any results. I hope it doesn't take a long time... but I doubt it's finished... considering the size of the Vongola's database..." He muttered under his breath and picked up his timer and cell phone.
Then, with Uri still perched on his head, went out of the reference room.
He didn't bother taking his books with him... Everyone in the base knew better than to touch anything he was still reading in the reference room. He didn't need to worry about them going missing.
Unfortunately for Hayato, when he reached his office, (as he expected) his scanning software had still not turned up any results.
Hayato sat back in his wheeled, black computer chair, and shook the mouse to remove the customized screen saver (little white skulls eating tiny sticks of dynamite... like some occult version of a Pacman game). He double- clicked a minimized window on the task bar and watched the window 'explode' (it looked like it blew up into the screen care of a bomb) into a maximized one.
Uri had hopped off his head when he sat down, onto the desk and sniffed at the computer monitor... The way his animal box weapon was acting, one would think that it was interested in the flashing images on the screen. In fact, it almost looked like it was reading the displayed information from the scanning software on the monitor...
Hayato put his arms behind his head and leaned back on his chair, feeling a little annoyed with the speed of the scanning software (despite the fact that his computer was already one of the fastest in the entire Vongola network).
It looked like he would have to monitor it from Italy while the Tenth went about with the preparations for conducting negotiations with a relatively new mafia family. But another security system and software upgrade was in order when he got back from abroad.
It might be recreation hours here, but everyday and hour is a work day for Gokudera Hayato... Being the Tenth's Right- hand man is a full- time job. One that he is more than happy to do.
Uri finally seemed to have gotten bored of watching the numbers and figures on the computer monitor.
The animal box weapon hopped down into Hayato's lap and curled up to sleep again, purring once more as it snuggled to leech off the warmth from his body.
Hayato absentmindedly began to pet and stroke the fur on its back and head again while reading the numeric symbols and coding text displayed on the monitor.
Waiting.
Watching. [4]
TRANSMISSION OF DECLASSIFIED ARCHIVE FILE 001 COMPLETE
A/N: Ahahaha... Yamamoto's so funny to write in his almost air- headed way. (I loved the 'Someone to feed it, play with it and love it forever and ever...' part. It's one of the silliest Yamamoto lines I've ever written as of late...)
[1] "Gokudera is like a cockroach...": This has got to be one of the strangest ideas I've ever come up with... I'm not sure where this came from... I think it's from when I tried to kill one earlier this week. I thought it was dead and then all of a sudden it suddenly skittered off and reappeared ten minutes later (I knew it was the same one because I took off half of its leg). Also teacher told me once that cockroaches are the only things that will be able to survive a nuclear war. I also remembered something weird: When I started reading KHR, I once misread Gokudera's name as "Gokiburi" (which is Japanese for "cockroach"... How'd that happen? (I'm not dyslexic, OK? I actually read very fast... too fast for my liking sometimes) I was probably tired 'cause I just came home from school when I started reading the manga), so I ended up wondering why the Hell is the guy called 'cockroach' of all things? I reread it the next day and saw it was actually written as 'Gokudera' (D'oh! ROFLMAO...).
[EDIT: I looked up when I had spare time the thing about cockroaches and nuclear wars and... OMG, it's true! THAT settles it! Gokudera is like a cockroach! Wahahaha!!!]
[2] Lucky Red: The Chinese believe that red is a lucky color. They wear it for their New Year's to 'bring in the good luck'. So Gokudera's wave energy is a lucky color (for the Chinese anyway)? Red is also the color of war, love, courage, passion and hate. Seems to fit Gokudera quite well. Although I wonder about that 'passion' part (is that in the 'romantic' context or just simply in the 'zeal' context? I think it's the latter one).
[3] "...the stray cat in my backyard": Hehe, this is actually a part of a line in Yamamoto's image song (Minna Suki Daze!). It's so hilariously cute.
[4] The Watchful Falcon: Gokudera's given name "Hayato" means "falcon person (haya+to)" literally. Although I found a site that said the character he's using for 'haya' also means 'hawk' and or 'peregrine falcon'. I'm not sure if the mangaka had this in mind but the use of 'falcon' matches a little with some stuff in ancient Egyptian history... which I thought was pretty cool. XD Falcons are a seen as symbols of watchfulness and protection in some cultures and are used as attack and hunting animals (Gokudera as Tsuna's attack dog... uh, bird).
Ancient Egyptians worshiped a god called Horus who is sometimes drawn as a man with a peregrine falcon's head or just simply a falcon. It was believed that he could see everything because of his eyes (the sun and moon). Horus lost an eye in a fight with another god (Set or Seth). While Horus was blind, he would sometimes mistake friends for enemies. It's similar to what happened in Rewrite 06 of "T.R.R.o.R.".