[Fic] Reborn!: Antagonistic Efforts
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY runesque!!!
I'm so sorry I took so long to finish--wrote myself into a couple of corners in the process. D: Kind of ashamed for giving you this without proofreading or anything... am afraid my KHR ficcing skills have long dried up like the Gobi. |D
___________________________________________________________
Title: Antagonistic Efforts
Series/Characters: [Reborn!] Mukuro/Hibari, Gokudera
Disclaimer: Not mine. Amano's.
Word Count: 2,235
Notes: I wonder if this could be considered a tie-in to The Totally Fictitious But Rapturous Love Story of Hibari Kyouya and Rokudo Mukuro, i.e. that massive 6918 fic that still remains unfinished despite having started it... quite a couple of months ago? Made the mistake of purposefully trying to write a temporarily OOC!Hibari... learned that experimentation on 6918 is very ill-advised indeed considering they don't get enough canon interaction as it is. Character dynamics probably suffered quite a bit, as did the believability of the events but... hah, que sera, sera. |D Un-beta'd and unedited. Will look at it again in the morning and fix any of the multiple problems I'm sure exist.
ETA: Now also available in Russian here thanks to the lovely translating efforts of sleeping_sei.
Dedication: For runesque in celebration of her belated birthday. You're amazing hon--clever, talented, imaginative--never stop. ♥
Summary: Mukuro's and Hibari's relationship shifts a little for the... stranger. And Gokudera's job is unenviable indeed.
___________________________________________________________
Antagonistic Efforts
by kasugai gummie
___________________________________________________________
2:30 p.m. - Namimori, Japan
Break Room C, Vongola Base
Ten months and five missions after the Vongola retrieve their own from under the Vendicare’s tender loving care, Hibari stops trying to tear off Mukuro’s lower jaw by way of greeting.
Nobody knows why exactly, but when there’s a remarkable decrease in collateral damage during group debriefings from one week to the next, the change does not go unnoticed. It’s all very sudden and unexpected--especially for the usual recipient of those gestures of immense dislike.
“Do you think I did something to offend him?” Mukuro muses at Gokudera, a preoccupied frown creasing his brow. They are the sole two occupants in the innocuously empty break room five doors down from the Vongola’s personal office, and Gokudera allows himself the luxury of staring at his fellow Italian as if he were a particularly disgusting (albeit fascinating) species of unicellular organism.
“Do I think you did something to offend him?” Gokudera says flatly. Only the Tenth and Reborn know why he has to say it at all. “Doesn’t your very existence piss him off something fierce?”
“That’s what I’d thought too.” Mukuro huffs against the palm of his hand, elbow braced against the table top and looking very much the disgruntled spouse at a counselling session.
Not wanting to feel anymore like his mentor (though Gokudera suspects nobody ever seeks out Shamal for mental health advice anyway), Gokudera folds. “Maybe he’s ill,” he offers at last. He also silently vows to never take his coffee in this particular break room, ever again.
“He did sustain a minor head injury from that last mission...”
“Or maybe he’s had a change of heart.”
“Change of-oh, please,” Mukuro laughs shortly, “spare me your scientific method.”
“You-” Do you want my help or not? The empiricist in Gokudera bristles at the dismissal. Only the enduring fancies of telling Mukuro where he could shove his karmic mysticisms alongside a few hundred sticks of dynamite keep him from throwing a magnificently epileptic fit right then and there. (Not to mention, he’d promised the Tenth that he’d better control his temper after that last unfortunate incident involving Sasagawa, the Family’s prized collection of 16th century lawn ornaments, and pilates.)
Gokudera scowls into the dregs of his rapidly-cooling beverage. “Fine. Maybe he just got used to you.”
“Gotten used to me? Perhaps,” Mukuro echoes thoughtfully. “He is of that sort, isn’t he? So very resistant to change unless-until-it suits him. But somehow I doubt that that’s the case this time. It feels like he’s been avoiding me as well, now that I think about it...”
“You do know that you’d probably be better off discussing this with Kusakabe?”
The smirk Mukuro responds with is positively reasonable. Almost charming in its agreeability even. “Now, why would I do that when you’re three times more accessible? I always find you in one of these rooms, you realise,” he says.
Gokudera stares hard at the easy camaraderie caking the other’s (totally fake) expression and amends his previous vow; there’s no way he’s even setting foot in any of the conference rooms, ever again.
Unaware, or perhaps unconcerned with the increasingly tense atmosphere permeating the table, Mukuro taps his chin, contemplative. “His urge to bare his fangs at me are still very much alive and well, that much is certain.”
“He almost peeled off the wallpaper at yesterday’s meeting when you sat next to him.”
“I know. Wasn’t it endearing?”
“He’s totally defective,” Gokudera snaps. Like you.
“That could be cute too,” Mukuro allows vaguely. He’d begun to trace fanciful little circles and figure-eights onto the tabletop. “But he didn’t do anything else. Curious, wouldn’t you agree? I’ve given him head injuries before myself and this has never been a problem… hmm, how perplexing.”
Another wave of fatigue washes over Gokudera as Mukuro continues to puzzle out his personal problems at an infuriatingly moderate pace. He would bet that none of the other Families’ right hand men had to put up with this kind of behaviour and the additional responsibilities that came with.
“So what did you do, besides not give him lasting brain trauma?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary: Kusakabe reviewed the intel, I cast some illusions, he tried to ditch me again and almost got shot-
“Ah, that must have been it!” The illusionist snaps his fingers as if in triumph. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have rescued him from an untimely death last night.” Mukuro speaks to the side as if sharing a conspiratorial secret. “It was our anniversary, you know. Some peon wanted to shoot him. Well, some little man did shoot at him but... who knew he’d be so averse to being saved?” A small amused sigh. “I suppose I really should have let him bite me mostly-dead instead.”
Hallelujah, mystery solved, his job is done here. The urge to pry into that crazy bastard’s mind is great, but not overpowering, and somehow Gokudera manages to refrain from potentially disgracing himself and the Tenth by voicing his otherwise perfectly legitimate disbelief (i.e. “What anniversary, you fucking delusional sodomite?”) Instead, he shrugs, offering a muttered “Yeah, probably should have,” and puts in the extra effort to drain his cup without breathing and get back to the Tenth as soon as possible.
Yes, he could hear the Tenth’s voice; the Tenth needed his assistance immediately… better hurry up and ditch the delusional fruit; wouldn’t want to keep the Tenth waiting.
“So, what do you suggest I do to get him back to normal?”
What. Gokudera pauses in mid-chug, this time choosing to eye the illusionist as if he’d just spontaneously sprouted a second head. Dropping off of Hibari Kyouya’s radar after topping his personal shitlist for years on end is akin to being granted a divine pardon after all; only a person lacking extreme amounts of common sense would look that particular gift horse in the mouth.
Gokudera curses his inherent academic curiosity even as his mouth fires off the follow-up question: “Why?”
“It’d be boring otherwise, don’t you think?” Mukuro says, and smiles that slow, arsenic-laced smile of his. “Ah~ perhaps I have been too complacent lately. Any suggestions as to how I should renew my antagonization efforts?”
Mukuro, Gokudera realises, is that extremely common sense deficient person.
___________________________________________________________
6:00 p.m. - Tokyo, Japan
Kabukicho, Shinjuku
As it turns out, “antagonizing,” according to Mukuro, means inviting his prickly, almost-permanent (but don’t let him hear you say that) partner to dinner while in the midst of a rather uncompromisable mission; an S-classed, “you-fuck-up-you-die” kind of mission.
The crowd flows past them, on and off the sidewalk, a churning mass of drunken salarymen, prostitutes and tourists stepping around their position and leaving the two hitmen untouched, unnoticed. Mukuro regards his companion from the corner of his eye.
“I don’t think biting your phone to death will help us finish this job any faster,” he observes.
Hibari scowls absently at his handset’s brightly glowing screen, thumb tapping across the keypad in measured intervals.
“Or how about this: what say you we go have dinner first? It’s been six hours since lunch, and the target won’t be passing this checkpoint until nine-thirty anyway,” Mukuro says. Cajoles, really, in dulcet tones bound and time-tested to make the Japanese man give into his baser instincts. He leans back, hopeful, and readies himself for the anticipated swing.
But all Hibari does is snap his cellphone shut and tuck it away without ever looking at the other. “Fine,” he says. And strides past a truly bemused Mukuro towards the nearest street of high-end sushi houses.
Ever contrary to expectations indeed, Mukuro thinks as he follows and makes the necessary revisions to his approach.
(Was the delivery not sordid enough? Was it too tame?)
The restaurant they end up in is clean enough, quiet enough, and uncrowded enough to meet Hibari’s standards. That the owner practically falls over himself to serve and tend to their needs doesn’t escape Mukuro’s notice either. Ensconced at a corner table, closest to the back and away from the streetlights and evening hubbub, it’s hard to miss just how, well, tailored this restaurant is to a certain tonfa-wielding individual.
“Have you been shopping again?” Mukuro remarks offhandedly. He’s not expecting an answer.
He gets one anyway in the barest hint of a predatory grin that fleets across Hibari’s lips and the glitter in those grey eyes that don’t look so much at him as they do past him. How odd.
“Just Kabukicho,” Hibari adds succinctly. Dispassionately.
Mukuro tilts his head but his smile remains firm. First, the week-long display of ungodly restraint against excessive displays of violence towards Mukuro’s person; now, an equally disturbing initiation of civil conversation.
There’s something out of major alignment on the great wheel of rebirth, somewhere. Somewhere. Mukuro’s certain of this.
Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, of course. Merely peculiar. Bizarre.
And potentially irritating only after a long while.
“Stocks?”
“Real estate. Property investments. Territory expansion.”
“Oho?” Somehow he’s not surprised. “Such as?”
“Kokuyoh.”
Mukuro raises an eyebrow. “What a coincidence.”
“Not at all,” Hibari responds with perfectly sardonic aplomb, not unlike the way he’d usually inform a particularly dislikeable mark of his imminent demise, and this time Mukuro finds himself actually making eye-contact with his fellow Guardian.
The first time since that culpable mission and its strange sequence of events to be exact.
It’s not a particularly pleasant exchange per se; the hunger to permanently maim him, all that deliciously prickly violence-they’re all still (thankfully) there in that hard, calculating stare. But they’re being restrained, tamped down, and what used to be comfortably familiar no longer is and Mukuro can’t even begin to fathom why.
“I take it you’ve been remodelling then?”
“I abolished the uniforms,” Hibari says. And smiles viciously, as if to underline the demise of those adorable mini-skirts his cute Chrome had looked so good in.
Why you little…
Mukuro feels his own smile stiffen momentarily before it smoothes out again. “Yes, it’s too bad Namimori’s middle school population doesn’t have the necessary physique to do them justice.” He sighs. “It does take a pair of great legs after all.” He shakes his head, mock-pitying. Bring it on, little bird.
Hibari bares his teeth at that, and Mukuro is almost certain that everything would finally snap back into place, the bloody promise of Hibari-flavoured disciplinary action is so thick he can almost taste it in the air…
Only to blink in surprise when he catches sight of what appears to be their target entering through the front door. And accompanied by an entourage of thirty suspicious-looking men, no less.
“Is that-?”
Hibari relaxes a fraction, albeit reluctantly, and only so that he could follow Mukuro’s questioning glance over his shoulder.
However, their unfortunate server chooses that exact moment to bring them their platters of assorted rolls and sashimi, and though Mukuro manages to dodge the wayward bowl of complementary miso soup, the almost artistic flip of the ornately arranged plates when Hibari stands up and knocks into them is a little harder to avoid.
The yellow-tail is delicious, Mukuro decides even as the dining area erupts into a happy affair of semi-automatics and tonfas, peeling another slice from his suit jacket with ginger care. As is the super fatty tuna.
He’s contemplating saving some of what’s salvageable for Hibari who’d apparently decided to go with the fortuitous flow and complete their mission early when a shot embeds itself surprisingly close to his head by the wall.
“Need some help, Hibari-kun?” Mukuro calls to the fray solicitously and moves to get up anyway despite the lack of immediate answer.
He only has to duck a little to avoid the meat sack that hits the bullet hole seconds later. When he looks to pin down Hibari, the Japanese hitman is already in front of him and seemingly oblivious to the much-diminished rain of pellets around them.
Hard, glittering eyes hold Mukuro in place. “Now we’re even,” Hibari informs him. They share a cursory glance at the bloody-smear decorating the bamboo décor from where the body had slid down upon impact.
“Even?” Mukuro repeats.
“Ask Reborn,” Hibari suggests cryptically before stalking back to finish the job.
Reborn, eh?
Mukuro regards the Japanese man’s black-clad back bemusedly, cracks his jaw where his trident hadn’t managed to fully block the flash of tonfa, and smiles as he goes to clean up after Hibari.
___________________________________________________________
4:40 a.m. - Namimori, Japan
Storm Guardian’s Quarters, Vongola Base
“-so, apparently it was a bet between the two of them.”
“…” Gokudera pulls the device away from his ear to stare at in, incredulous.
“Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised-it is Reborn after all. Although I’m not sure how I should feel for being used as a bargaining chip in their wager. Offended? Flattered? What say you?”
“Mukuro.”
“Anyway, according to Hibari, he won of course, and raked in a tidy sum for all his apparent troubles-”
“Mukuro.”
“But you know, I can’t help but wonder about the details of that wager-I mean, if saving him results in an indeterminate period of civility, what would saving Namimori have resulted in?”
“Mukuro.”
“I-yes, Gokudera-kun?”
“One. Do you know what fucking time is it? Two. How the fuck did you get hold of this number so fucking fast??”
___________________________________________________________
Fin
Completed: January 31, 2010
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Okay. 2 months to finish a doujin and 3 prints for Acen. Ahahah. Hahaha. Ha. /CRIES
I'm so sorry I took so long to finish--wrote myself into a couple of corners in the process. D: Kind of ashamed for giving you this without proofreading or anything... am afraid my KHR ficcing skills have long dried up like the Gobi. |D
___________________________________________________________
Title: Antagonistic Efforts
Series/Characters: [Reborn!] Mukuro/Hibari, Gokudera
Disclaimer: Not mine. Amano's.
Word Count: 2,235
Notes: I wonder if this could be considered a tie-in to The Totally Fictitious But Rapturous Love Story of Hibari Kyouya and Rokudo Mukuro, i.e. that massive 6918 fic that still remains unfinished despite having started it... quite a couple of months ago? Made the mistake of purposefully trying to write a temporarily OOC!Hibari... learned that experimentation on 6918 is very ill-advised indeed considering they don't get enough canon interaction as it is. Character dynamics probably suffered quite a bit, as did the believability of the events but... hah, que sera, sera. |D Un-beta'd and unedited. Will look at it again in the morning and fix any of the multiple problems I'm sure exist.
ETA: Now also available in Russian here thanks to the lovely translating efforts of sleeping_sei.
Dedication: For runesque in celebration of her belated birthday. You're amazing hon--clever, talented, imaginative--never stop. ♥
Summary: Mukuro's and Hibari's relationship shifts a little for the... stranger. And Gokudera's job is unenviable indeed.
___________________________________________________________
Antagonistic Efforts
by kasugai gummie
___________________________________________________________
2:30 p.m. - Namimori, Japan
Break Room C, Vongola Base
Ten months and five missions after the Vongola retrieve their own from under the Vendicare’s tender loving care, Hibari stops trying to tear off Mukuro’s lower jaw by way of greeting.
Nobody knows why exactly, but when there’s a remarkable decrease in collateral damage during group debriefings from one week to the next, the change does not go unnoticed. It’s all very sudden and unexpected--especially for the usual recipient of those gestures of immense dislike.
“Do you think I did something to offend him?” Mukuro muses at Gokudera, a preoccupied frown creasing his brow. They are the sole two occupants in the innocuously empty break room five doors down from the Vongola’s personal office, and Gokudera allows himself the luxury of staring at his fellow Italian as if he were a particularly disgusting (albeit fascinating) species of unicellular organism.
“Do I think you did something to offend him?” Gokudera says flatly. Only the Tenth and Reborn know why he has to say it at all. “Doesn’t your very existence piss him off something fierce?”
“That’s what I’d thought too.” Mukuro huffs against the palm of his hand, elbow braced against the table top and looking very much the disgruntled spouse at a counselling session.
Not wanting to feel anymore like his mentor (though Gokudera suspects nobody ever seeks out Shamal for mental health advice anyway), Gokudera folds. “Maybe he’s ill,” he offers at last. He also silently vows to never take his coffee in this particular break room, ever again.
“He did sustain a minor head injury from that last mission...”
“Or maybe he’s had a change of heart.”
“Change of-oh, please,” Mukuro laughs shortly, “spare me your scientific method.”
“You-” Do you want my help or not? The empiricist in Gokudera bristles at the dismissal. Only the enduring fancies of telling Mukuro where he could shove his karmic mysticisms alongside a few hundred sticks of dynamite keep him from throwing a magnificently epileptic fit right then and there. (Not to mention, he’d promised the Tenth that he’d better control his temper after that last unfortunate incident involving Sasagawa, the Family’s prized collection of 16th century lawn ornaments, and pilates.)
Gokudera scowls into the dregs of his rapidly-cooling beverage. “Fine. Maybe he just got used to you.”
“Gotten used to me? Perhaps,” Mukuro echoes thoughtfully. “He is of that sort, isn’t he? So very resistant to change unless-until-it suits him. But somehow I doubt that that’s the case this time. It feels like he’s been avoiding me as well, now that I think about it...”
“You do know that you’d probably be better off discussing this with Kusakabe?”
The smirk Mukuro responds with is positively reasonable. Almost charming in its agreeability even. “Now, why would I do that when you’re three times more accessible? I always find you in one of these rooms, you realise,” he says.
Gokudera stares hard at the easy camaraderie caking the other’s (totally fake) expression and amends his previous vow; there’s no way he’s even setting foot in any of the conference rooms, ever again.
Unaware, or perhaps unconcerned with the increasingly tense atmosphere permeating the table, Mukuro taps his chin, contemplative. “His urge to bare his fangs at me are still very much alive and well, that much is certain.”
“He almost peeled off the wallpaper at yesterday’s meeting when you sat next to him.”
“I know. Wasn’t it endearing?”
“He’s totally defective,” Gokudera snaps. Like you.
“That could be cute too,” Mukuro allows vaguely. He’d begun to trace fanciful little circles and figure-eights onto the tabletop. “But he didn’t do anything else. Curious, wouldn’t you agree? I’ve given him head injuries before myself and this has never been a problem… hmm, how perplexing.”
Another wave of fatigue washes over Gokudera as Mukuro continues to puzzle out his personal problems at an infuriatingly moderate pace. He would bet that none of the other Families’ right hand men had to put up with this kind of behaviour and the additional responsibilities that came with.
“So what did you do, besides not give him lasting brain trauma?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary: Kusakabe reviewed the intel, I cast some illusions, he tried to ditch me again and almost got shot-
“Ah, that must have been it!” The illusionist snaps his fingers as if in triumph. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have rescued him from an untimely death last night.” Mukuro speaks to the side as if sharing a conspiratorial secret. “It was our anniversary, you know. Some peon wanted to shoot him. Well, some little man did shoot at him but... who knew he’d be so averse to being saved?” A small amused sigh. “I suppose I really should have let him bite me mostly-dead instead.”
Hallelujah, mystery solved, his job is done here. The urge to pry into that crazy bastard’s mind is great, but not overpowering, and somehow Gokudera manages to refrain from potentially disgracing himself and the Tenth by voicing his otherwise perfectly legitimate disbelief (i.e. “What anniversary, you fucking delusional sodomite?”) Instead, he shrugs, offering a muttered “Yeah, probably should have,” and puts in the extra effort to drain his cup without breathing and get back to the Tenth as soon as possible.
Yes, he could hear the Tenth’s voice; the Tenth needed his assistance immediately… better hurry up and ditch the delusional fruit; wouldn’t want to keep the Tenth waiting.
“So, what do you suggest I do to get him back to normal?”
What. Gokudera pauses in mid-chug, this time choosing to eye the illusionist as if he’d just spontaneously sprouted a second head. Dropping off of Hibari Kyouya’s radar after topping his personal shitlist for years on end is akin to being granted a divine pardon after all; only a person lacking extreme amounts of common sense would look that particular gift horse in the mouth.
Gokudera curses his inherent academic curiosity even as his mouth fires off the follow-up question: “Why?”
“It’d be boring otherwise, don’t you think?” Mukuro says, and smiles that slow, arsenic-laced smile of his. “Ah~ perhaps I have been too complacent lately. Any suggestions as to how I should renew my antagonization efforts?”
Mukuro, Gokudera realises, is that extremely common sense deficient person.
___________________________________________________________
6:00 p.m. - Tokyo, Japan
Kabukicho, Shinjuku
As it turns out, “antagonizing,” according to Mukuro, means inviting his prickly, almost-permanent (but don’t let him hear you say that) partner to dinner while in the midst of a rather uncompromisable mission; an S-classed, “you-fuck-up-you-die” kind of mission.
The crowd flows past them, on and off the sidewalk, a churning mass of drunken salarymen, prostitutes and tourists stepping around their position and leaving the two hitmen untouched, unnoticed. Mukuro regards his companion from the corner of his eye.
“I don’t think biting your phone to death will help us finish this job any faster,” he observes.
Hibari scowls absently at his handset’s brightly glowing screen, thumb tapping across the keypad in measured intervals.
“Or how about this: what say you we go have dinner first? It’s been six hours since lunch, and the target won’t be passing this checkpoint until nine-thirty anyway,” Mukuro says. Cajoles, really, in dulcet tones bound and time-tested to make the Japanese man give into his baser instincts. He leans back, hopeful, and readies himself for the anticipated swing.
But all Hibari does is snap his cellphone shut and tuck it away without ever looking at the other. “Fine,” he says. And strides past a truly bemused Mukuro towards the nearest street of high-end sushi houses.
Ever contrary to expectations indeed, Mukuro thinks as he follows and makes the necessary revisions to his approach.
(Was the delivery not sordid enough? Was it too tame?)
The restaurant they end up in is clean enough, quiet enough, and uncrowded enough to meet Hibari’s standards. That the owner practically falls over himself to serve and tend to their needs doesn’t escape Mukuro’s notice either. Ensconced at a corner table, closest to the back and away from the streetlights and evening hubbub, it’s hard to miss just how, well, tailored this restaurant is to a certain tonfa-wielding individual.
“Have you been shopping again?” Mukuro remarks offhandedly. He’s not expecting an answer.
He gets one anyway in the barest hint of a predatory grin that fleets across Hibari’s lips and the glitter in those grey eyes that don’t look so much at him as they do past him. How odd.
“Just Kabukicho,” Hibari adds succinctly. Dispassionately.
Mukuro tilts his head but his smile remains firm. First, the week-long display of ungodly restraint against excessive displays of violence towards Mukuro’s person; now, an equally disturbing initiation of civil conversation.
There’s something out of major alignment on the great wheel of rebirth, somewhere. Somewhere. Mukuro’s certain of this.
Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, of course. Merely peculiar. Bizarre.
And potentially irritating only after a long while.
“Stocks?”
“Real estate. Property investments. Territory expansion.”
“Oho?” Somehow he’s not surprised. “Such as?”
“Kokuyoh.”
Mukuro raises an eyebrow. “What a coincidence.”
“Not at all,” Hibari responds with perfectly sardonic aplomb, not unlike the way he’d usually inform a particularly dislikeable mark of his imminent demise, and this time Mukuro finds himself actually making eye-contact with his fellow Guardian.
The first time since that culpable mission and its strange sequence of events to be exact.
It’s not a particularly pleasant exchange per se; the hunger to permanently maim him, all that deliciously prickly violence-they’re all still (thankfully) there in that hard, calculating stare. But they’re being restrained, tamped down, and what used to be comfortably familiar no longer is and Mukuro can’t even begin to fathom why.
“I take it you’ve been remodelling then?”
“I abolished the uniforms,” Hibari says. And smiles viciously, as if to underline the demise of those adorable mini-skirts his cute Chrome had looked so good in.
Why you little…
Mukuro feels his own smile stiffen momentarily before it smoothes out again. “Yes, it’s too bad Namimori’s middle school population doesn’t have the necessary physique to do them justice.” He sighs. “It does take a pair of great legs after all.” He shakes his head, mock-pitying. Bring it on, little bird.
Hibari bares his teeth at that, and Mukuro is almost certain that everything would finally snap back into place, the bloody promise of Hibari-flavoured disciplinary action is so thick he can almost taste it in the air…
Only to blink in surprise when he catches sight of what appears to be their target entering through the front door. And accompanied by an entourage of thirty suspicious-looking men, no less.
“Is that-?”
Hibari relaxes a fraction, albeit reluctantly, and only so that he could follow Mukuro’s questioning glance over his shoulder.
However, their unfortunate server chooses that exact moment to bring them their platters of assorted rolls and sashimi, and though Mukuro manages to dodge the wayward bowl of complementary miso soup, the almost artistic flip of the ornately arranged plates when Hibari stands up and knocks into them is a little harder to avoid.
The yellow-tail is delicious, Mukuro decides even as the dining area erupts into a happy affair of semi-automatics and tonfas, peeling another slice from his suit jacket with ginger care. As is the super fatty tuna.
He’s contemplating saving some of what’s salvageable for Hibari who’d apparently decided to go with the fortuitous flow and complete their mission early when a shot embeds itself surprisingly close to his head by the wall.
“Need some help, Hibari-kun?” Mukuro calls to the fray solicitously and moves to get up anyway despite the lack of immediate answer.
He only has to duck a little to avoid the meat sack that hits the bullet hole seconds later. When he looks to pin down Hibari, the Japanese hitman is already in front of him and seemingly oblivious to the much-diminished rain of pellets around them.
Hard, glittering eyes hold Mukuro in place. “Now we’re even,” Hibari informs him. They share a cursory glance at the bloody-smear decorating the bamboo décor from where the body had slid down upon impact.
“Even?” Mukuro repeats.
“Ask Reborn,” Hibari suggests cryptically before stalking back to finish the job.
Reborn, eh?
Mukuro regards the Japanese man’s black-clad back bemusedly, cracks his jaw where his trident hadn’t managed to fully block the flash of tonfa, and smiles as he goes to clean up after Hibari.
___________________________________________________________
4:40 a.m. - Namimori, Japan
Storm Guardian’s Quarters, Vongola Base
“-so, apparently it was a bet between the two of them.”
“…” Gokudera pulls the device away from his ear to stare at in, incredulous.
“Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised-it is Reborn after all. Although I’m not sure how I should feel for being used as a bargaining chip in their wager. Offended? Flattered? What say you?”
“Mukuro.”
“Anyway, according to Hibari, he won of course, and raked in a tidy sum for all his apparent troubles-”
“Mukuro.”
“But you know, I can’t help but wonder about the details of that wager-I mean, if saving him results in an indeterminate period of civility, what would saving Namimori have resulted in?”
“Mukuro.”
“I-yes, Gokudera-kun?”
“One. Do you know what fucking time is it? Two. How the fuck did you get hold of this number so fucking fast??”
___________________________________________________________
Fin
Completed: January 31, 2010
___________________________________________________________
Okay. 2 months to finish a doujin and 3 prints for Acen. Ahahah. Hahaha. Ha. /CRIES