[gardener] First day stomach jitters
Title: First Day Stomach Jitters
ID: gardener
Word count: 5524
Rating/Warnings: PG-13/language
Character(s) or pairing(s): Tsuna, Shouichi, Squalo, Bel, Dino, Ryohei, Gokudera, Giannini, Bianchi, Hibari
Theme challenge: YES
Tsunayoshi Sawada was lucky. And forever indebted to Professor Reborn, the scariest professor in Namimori University’s Department of Mass Communication, for hooking him up with an internship at a local television network after he had been rejected by all the other places.
It was his first day at the news station VGLA-TV 10. He had never heard of this station before, so when he looked it up online after hearing that he got the position, he didn’t find out much about it. Only that they prided themselves on being “unique.” Thus, Tsuna didn’t have high expectations for a small, B-class station, but he’d take any experience to beautify his résumé in order to offset his subpar grades.
He arrived at the station dressed in a new dark suit his mother bought him last month for his 20th birthday and a leather portfolio in hand. The facility looked much smaller than that of MLFR-TV 100 which he toured last semester on a field trip. This place wasn’t bustling with the energy and excitement that he imagined would take place in a fast-paced field; rather, it spoke volumes of dullness and unprofessionalism with its empty reception desk, wilted indoor plants, and too-silent hallways.
The person he was supposed to meet was Professor Reborn’s old student named Dino, but he had no idea what this he looked like. Tsuna cursed at himself for not writing down Dino’s phone number from their e-mails.
“Ummm… hello?” he called out to the empty lobby.
Expecting to hear nothing more than his own echo, Tsuna jumped a little when a bespectacled, red-haired man peered out from the last room down the hall.
“You’re Tsunayoshi?” he asked.
The intern gave a nod as the man fully emerged from the room and made his way towards him. Tsuna furiously rubbed his clammy hands on the side of his pants in preparation of a handshake.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Shouichi Irie, but you can call me Shouichi. I’m the newscast director of VGLA,” said the man.
Shouichi stood slightly taller than him and didn’t look too much older than twenty-five or so. Tsuna thought he looked like a fashion oxymoron with his grandpa-brown vest, grey slacks half a size too large, yellow Converses, and a black beret.
“We weren’t planning to hire interns since we’re in the process of downsizing, but Dino told me that his old professor recommended you. And he said that Professor Reborn is-and these are his words-‘very bright and has the ability to turn losers into stars.’ And Dino’s a talented guy so I couldn’t turn him down.” Shouichi chuckled and Tsuna forced himself to smile, unsure of whether to feel insulted or inspired.
“Thank you for giving me this opportunity,” Tsuna said.
Shouichi smiled and gave him a tour of the station. The video stockroom had a weird, musty smell to it, and Tsuna’s stomach turned a little when he learned that he would be spending a considerable amount of time there, logging tapes and searching for stock videos to be shown on the air.
The video control room down the hall would have taken Tsuna’s breath away with the high-tech video mixers if not for having to maneuver through a crunchy walkway of empty lollipop wrappers and sticks beneath his feet.
“Our technical director Spanner will show you how to make video composites. I’ve known him since high school, and he’s excellent at what he does-we’re very lucky to have him.”
Shouichi then went on to talk about practically everything in the room… except for the mess. It was there that Tsuna decided that the smelly stockroom was the lesser of the two evils. So far.
Tsuna was shocked (and a little relieved) when he was introduced to a normal-looking copy room. No odd smells, no littered floor. The machines didn’t appear to be outdated. Shouichi told him that part of his job would also include doing faxes and mail runs. Somehow, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to Tsuna if he ended up favoring this part of his internship.
“Our copier is only two years old, but it’s a little temperamental so you’ll have to kick it like this.” Shouichi demonstrated with a hard twack of his yellow shoe to the side of the machine.
Tsuna shed silent tears as his heart sank into a pool of confusion and misfortune. “Why don’t you get a new one?” he asked as casually as possible.
Shouichi explained that they couldn’t because of their limited resources. “The copier still works and should last for a good while as long as certain people were prevented from using it.”
Before Tsuna had a chance to ask about the details of these “certain people,” a tall man with a scar on his chin strolled into the room.
“It’s almost time for the meeting. Everyone’s waiting for you,” he said.
The red-haired man looked at his watch. “Yikes, it’s time! Thanks, Takeshi. Oh yeah, this is the new intern, Tsunayoshi Sawada.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Takeshi Yamamoto. I do the sportscasts here.”
They shook hands and followed Shouichi to the conference room where everyone seemed to turn deaf ears at a quarrel among three people: a guy with long, white hair (who looked really familiar to Tsuna for some reason), a blond guy with a tiara, and a guy with shades and a weird half-green haircut. They stopped when Shouichi stepped into the room.
“Sorry I’m late, guys. I was showing the new intern around. He’ll be helping out with the research and video editing as well as doing packages and voice overs. So I’m counting on you guys to teach him everything you know.” He then turned to Tsuna. “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”
As the intern scanned the faces in front of him, he came across some who looked genuinely curious (like Takeshi) and some who looked genuinely frightening (like the long-haired guy). Tsuna’s hands felt sweaty again, but he couldn’t dry them-the last thing he wanted to do was to make a bad impression on the first day.
“Uh, my name is Tsuna Sawada. I’m in my third year of studying broadcast journalism at Namimori University and-“
A man with a white band aid across his nose cut him off. “Do you like boxing?”
“N-not really…”
“God, Lawn Head. Quit with the boxing, you freak!” The surly voice belonged to a guy with a cigarette in hand. Though he was sharply dressed, something about him-maybe his ear piercings or the chunky rings decorating his fingers-definitely looked scary, akin to a former street thug.
Shouichi waved his hands in the air. “All right, you two! No more. We can’t scare Tsuna away.” Then he asked everyone in the room to introduce themselves to Tsuna.
But that proved to be pointless since he couldn’t remember the majority of their names. Except for that long-haired guy named Squalo, an anchorman, who he was pretty sure he’d seen before somewhere. And now he finally had a face to Dino, one of the field reporters and his contact through Professor Reborn. Dino, with his male model good looks and bright smile, made Tsuna’s face warm just a little. He learned that Dino was a loser before taking Professor Reborn’s class and went on to graduate with honors. Seeing a survivor of Professor Reborn in the flesh gave him a new level of confidence and gratitude.
The first task Tsuna received didn’t come from Shouichi but from Squalo.
“Boy! I want some coffee. Regular with cream. Two teaspoons. And no sugar because that’s gay.”
Tsuna dashed straight for the coffee maker in the corner of the room. “O-okay!”
“Aw, come on, Squalo,” Dino said half pleadingly. “Don’t force the menial tasks on him.”
Squalo glared at his blond colleague. “When I was an intern, I had to get coffee for that shitty Xanxus. This kid has to do the same if he wants to move up in this world.”
Beside him, Bel, the guy with the tiara, cackled. “I didn’t have to intern because I’m a prince.”
Tsuna hastily set down the coffee on the table in front of the scary man and hurried to the front next to his red-haired fortress.
The newscast director cleared his throat and opened the discussion of current events and news topics. Surprisingly, as if by magic, the room transformed into something entirely different. The people-no, the news team-had come prepared with their story ideas and nodded their heads to Shouichi’s directions. Once or twice, a secretary popped in with faxes about breaking news, and plans got altered with simple shrugs.
Impressed by the professionalism and harmonious adaptation to constant change of the VGLA-TV 10 team, Tsuna convinced himself he was in the right place. Until the spotlight was forced on him when Shouichi asked for his input for potential stories.
Tsuna chewed on his lip and tried hard to remember what he saw online the day before.
“Well, uh…. I think the zoo has a new exhibit. Or something…”
Around the table, looks were exchanged and whispers began to surface. Tsuna’s hands grew clammy once more and he eyed the door in front of him, wishing for it to spontaneously open so that he could make his escape.
“Sounds interesting,” Dino spoke up, “I’ll report on that. We need some good news once in awhile, right?”
Shouichi nodded. “That’s fine. After you get the contact information and details from Tsuna you can take a crew with you to the zoo, and we’ll have you do a live report for the six o’clock news.”
Squalo appeared to be muttering something under his breath, and Tsuna dared not ask what it was. Even though he tried to avoid looking at the menacing guy, he found himself unable to quench the strong feeling of recognition.
“You know,” Dino spoke up, “Tsuna really resembles the founder and first president of VGLA-TV. You’re related to him, right, Tsuna? I guess it makes sense that you’d have high aspirations to take over this station.”
Tsuna raised an eyebrow. “Ummm, that’s not really my goal and nobody in my family’s in this business.“
“Really? Professor Reborn sent me an e-mail this morning saying that you told him that it was your dream to take over VGLA-TV.”
“What? No, no, no!” Tsuna waved his hands frantically. “I never told him that. I don’t want to be the president! Really, I swear!”
The sharp sound of Squalo’s fist that pounded the table jerked everyone awake.
“Like hell this brat’s gonna be our tenth president!”
The scary smoker stubbed his cigarette and glared at Tsuna. “I won’t accept this loser to be the tenth. That’s going to be my position.”
Squalo stood up and shouted at the smoker. “VOOIIII! The tenth president is going to be Xanxus and no one else. Remember that, you douchebag!”
“And who the fuck are you calling a douchebag?”
It was just like Professor Reborn set this all up. Tsuna wanted to die.
Shouichi clasped his hands together. “Please, guys. It must be a misunderstanding so let’s all just calm down, okay?”
When the news team was dismissed, Tsuna stayed behind to wait for Shouichi to finish his phone calls. It was amazing how someone like him still remained composed despite being pulled in different directions as well as finding the time to mentor him.
“Sorry to make you wait,” Shouichi said after he hung up. “It’s about the time of day where things really start picking up so please forgive me if I seem like I’m in a hurry. Our financial reporter Mammon just called in sick and hasn’t finished editing his videos so we can’t air it today. That’s why I just called a last-minute replacement.”
As the two walked to the smelly video stockroom where Tsuna was to be spending the next few hours getting accustomed to the classification system and logging tapes, he asked about Xanxus and Squalo.
Shouichi adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “Xanxus is one of the top executives who’s most likely going to succeed the ninth president. He was the one Squalo used to intern for.”
“Squalo looks really familiar to me for some reason,” Tsuna admitted.
Shouichi laughed. “That’s because he used to be the model and spokesman for the Varia Herbal hair products. You’ve probably seen him in the commercials.”
“Oh yeah! Now I remember! So why did he switch careers?”
“It’s kind of funny. He has a broadcast journalism degree and interned for us when he was a student. But after he graduated, he was recruited by Varia Herbal so he did some modeling and acting for awhile there. When the company replaced him with another model named Kikyo, Squalo wasn’t happy at all. He threw a tantrum and I heard that some table flipping was involved. And we rehired him because he did a good job as an intern and he really wanted to be in front of the camera. And he’s been doing a good job since. Our ratings even went up thanks to him. But it’s an unspoken rule among us that we don’t mention Kikyo at all in front of Squalo. That’ll flip his switch. I guess he’s still pretty bitter about that.”
Terrific, Tsuna thought.
The next few hours went by more quickly than Tsuna anticipated. With the help of Giannini, the video stockroom manager, two days’ worth of tapes were properly categorized and shelved.
“Thanks for helping me, Tsuna,” said Giannini as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. “We’re a little understaffed and I just came back from vacation so things get piled up pretty quickly.”
They were interrupted when Shouichi, now holding a headset in one hand and a handheld radio in the other, stopped by to tell Tsuna that the evening news broadcast was going to take place in fifteen minutes and that he was more than welcome to observe.
This was the highlight of Tsuna’s day-seeing the ideas from hours ago transformed into actual newscasts. He made a mental note to himself to request to shadow Dino for a day to get away from being in the stockroom. When he entered the studio, it was dimmed except for the anchor table area and two green screens. Shouichi walked around the set to make sure that everyone was ready.
Squalo and Bel took their places at the main desk. Visually, they were an odd pair with Squalo in a crisp white shirt and blazer next to Bel who was wearing a loose purple and black striped shirt and still donning his tiara.
“Don’t get in my way this time,” Squalo growled to his co-anchor.
Bel broke into a grin. “We’ll see about that.”
Tsuna felt a little uneasy. “Are they going to be okay?” he whispered to Shouichi.
“They’ll be fine. It’s like this all the time.” Shouichi cleared his throat. “Okay, guys. We’re going on air in ten seconds. Five… four… three… two… one!”
The lights dimmed even more, and Tsuna watched the opening credits on a monitor next to him.
“Good evening,” said Bel pleasantly. “You’ve just tuned in to VGLA 10 with news you won’t find anywhere else. Because our news kicks the other stations’ asses. Ushishishi.”
Tsuna groaned inwardly. Should that guy really be saying that? Shouichi looked calm next to him so that probably meant he was fine with it. Though the camera didn’t catch it, Tsuna noticed Squalo rolling his eyes.
Squalo introduced the top stories, starting with an explosion at a bakery. The video article was narrated by what sounded like the bad-tempered smoker from earlier. When the clip was finished, the cameras went back to Squalo who added, “I hope they catch the motherfucker who did this because that’s my favorite bakery.”
“Mine too,” Bel chimed.
“Didn’t I tell you not to butt in, you retard?”
Bel flashed a wide smile in return. “Next, a man named Chikusa Kakimoto was arrested for homicide. Get this: he killed his victim with a yo-yo. No further information is available at this time, but we’ll keep you updated. Though I have to admit, the yo-yo is kinda cool.”
“Fuck, what kind of an idiot kills with a yo-yo?” said Squalo. “Better yet, what kind of an idiot dies from a yo-yo? People like that are just a waste of space and should just die.”
“You don’t have to worry about that guy anymore,” said Bel.
Tsuna was baffled. This wasn’t the type of newscast he was expecting. He looked over at Shouichi and saw that the redhead was biting his lip.
“Geez, the stupid people in this world,” Squalo muttered. “Okay, what’s next? I forgot.”
“Your mom,” said Bel.
“Shut the fuck up. I’ll kill you,” threatened Squalo.
Shouichi ran forward and air-traced the letters for “zoo” with his finger until Squalo got the hint.
“Next up,” said Squalo in a very irritated tone, “Dino is live at Namimori Zoo with his report on…” He squinted at the teleprompter in front him. “…on the newest exhibit. Man, that’s gay.”
The monitor showed a live feed of Dino holding a small turtle. Next to him was a man in a beige uniform with a yellow bird perched on one shoulder and a white owl perched on the other. In his hands was a hedgehog.
“I’m at Namimori Zoo with zookeeper Kyoya Hibari who’s here to tell us about the new exhibit where you can come in and pet small animals like the ones we have here. Can you tell us more about it?”
“You just said it,” said Kyoya. “There’s nothing more to say.”
“Well, uhhh… what kinds of animals can visitors pet?” asked Dino.
“The ones right here.”
“VOOIII!” interjected Squalo. “What the fuck is this? This isn’t news!”
A split screen of Squalo and Dino was shown to capture the conversation. Seeing his earlier impromptu idea boil to a failure, Tsuna vowed to never again bring up zoos.
“It’s news!” Dino said defensively. “We’re telling people about the new petting zoo.”
“It’s a stupid zoo with stupid animals who don’t do anything because they’re stupid,” said Squalo. “I should just go there and open all the cages. Or better yet, take some home for dinner.”
The zookeeper narrowed his eyes. “Are you threatening the animals? I’ll bite you to death.”
Tsuna flinched at the iciness of the zookeeper’s voice. He definitely sounded like a man Tsuna didn’t want to cross paths with.
“Now, now,” said Dino nervously as he placed a hand on Kyoya’s shoulder. “Let’s all be friends, okay?”
“Bring it on, pansy!” sneered Squalo. “I’ll take you down!”
Kyoya stepped away from Dino. He shifted the hedgehog to one hand and, in the blink of an eye, produced a tonfa from his sleeve. “You’re too close to me,” he said to the reporter.
“God,” barked Squalo, “get that bastard out of my sight. He’s pissing me off!”
Kyoya approached the camera. “You’re annoying.”
“Wait, no! Stop!” Dino shouted in the background as Kyoya jammed his tonfa into the camera lens, disconnecting the live feed.
The telecast immediately went to a commercial break, and Shouichi buried his face in his hands.
“Oh God,” he murmured.
“Is it always like this?” Tsuna questioned.
“Yes. I know I should expect it to degenerate into chaos every time, but a part of me hopes it would go smoothly. But the viewers seem to like this style so I haven’t bothered to make our newscasts perfect. All I can do is to keep things from spinning completely out of control.”
After the commercials, Bel introduced the weather segment and weatherman Ryohei Sasagawa. The cameras turned to the boxing guy in front of a green screen.
“Today was extremely sunny with a high of 80° and this will continue on for the next two days. A cold front is going to move in this weekend and we’re expecting it to be extremely cloudy with a chance of rain. So for all you boxers who do morning training, better get out those warmer clothes and your umbrellas!”
At this point, Tsuna seriously questioned Shouichi’s thought process in hiring these people. And the sanity of the viewers who supposedly propagated this craziness.
When the seven-day forecast was shown on the screen, Shouichi’s “What the hell?” described Tsuna’s thoughts exactly. The weather graphics looked unlike any he’d seen before. It was comprised of childish doodles and weird animation. The sun was smiling and wearing sunglasses. For the expected rain on Thursday, an umbrella with a J-shaped handle was rocking back and forth next to a bobbing cloud with raindrops in the background.
“Well, this is new,” said Bel.
“What the hell? That’s the shittiest set of graphics I’ve ever seen in my life!” said Squalo.
Ryohei curled a fist. “Hey, don’t diss my extreme graphics! I stayed up all night making them!”
Bel tilted his head. “They’re extreme all right. Looks like the umbrella is humping the cloud. And the voyeuristic sun is happily watching them have sex.”
“Christ, we don’t want your weather porn,” said Squalo.
“Shut up!” yelled Ryohei.
Now that Squalo called it “weather porn,” Tsuna couldn’t look at it any other way. He mentally retracted his thought earlier about this being the right place for him. It wasn’t. It was just a collection of wackos who didn’t care that the cameras were filming.
“I wish he would’ve shown this to me before we aired it,” said Shouichi.
“Moving on to something that’s less gay…” said Squalo, “Never mind, it’s Lussuria with entertainment news.”
The cameras showed a guy who Tsuna immediately recognized as the one with the shades and weird haircut from the meeting. He was behind an unfamiliar desk. Tsuna strained his neck around the studio to see where he was located. Then he remembered being told there was a studio next door and concluded that the Lussuria guy was probably in there.
“Hi everyone!” said Lussuria in a singsong voice. “This is Mama Lussuria and here’s the latest on what’s happening in the entertainment industry. Actress Haru Miura reportedly broke her leg today while filming an action scene in her latest movie. Sad, isn’t it? But what’s even sadder is this atrocity she wore when the paparazzi snapped a shot of her walking her dog last week.”
On the monitor, Tsuna saw a picture of a brunette with her hair in a high ponytail wearing an off-the-shoulder dress with an explosion of colorful patterns holding a leash to her chihuahua. She didn’t seem that bad to Tsuna.
“I would throw up, but the rainbow already did. Moving on, we have an announcement that Chinese pop idol I-pin will be making a stop here in Namimori for her tour and blah, blah. So booooring. Next, in the modeling world, supermodel Hana Kurokawa throws her cell phone at a little kid…we don’t care…oh! The Calvin Klein ad starring underwear model Lambo has been revealed this morning and, believe me, it is hot. There’s nothing sexier than seeing a man with toned abs and sweat beads around his face. Oooh! I’m getting a little warm just thinking about it.”
“Are you done being a faggot?” Squalo cut in.
“I’m not done with my report,” said Lussuria with a pout. “Anyway…I have a riddle for you guys. What’s blue and red, wears a dark suit, and is sex on legs?”
“Squalo’s mom,” Bel answered nonchalantly as the crew around Tsuna tried to hide their snickers.
“Shut the fuck up with my mom!” roared Squalo.
“I think I’m getting a stomachache,” said Shouchi weakly.
“Are you okay?” whispered Tsuna.
“I’ll be okay.”
“Wrong,” said Lussuria. “It’s our favorite dichromatic-eyed magician Mukuro Rokudo! He’s going to have a special performance on TV that’s set to air next month. And for his new trick, he’s going to escape from a water prison. Sounds sexy, doesn’t it? Mukuro all naked and wet and tied up-oops! Looks like I’m out of time now. Back to you, Bel and Squalo.”
“That’s Squalo and Bel,” Squalo firmly corrected, ignoring Bel’s cackling next to him. He faced the camera. “Apparently, Lussuria took too long with his gayness so now we have to go to a commercial break. Don’t change the channel or else.”
Shouichi left Tsuna to run to the other studio. Tsuna had to admit-as messed up as this newscast was, he could see how others would find it entertaining.
“Tsunayoshi,” said Shouichi catching his breath, “You’re going to be on TV. Remember when I told you I called in a replacement? It’s Bianchi and her cooking segment. All you have to do is to eat the food that she will make and say that you like it. We don’t have much time so come next door with me.”
Before Tsuna could respond, he was being tugged by the sleeve. In the other studio, a slim, pretty woman was straightening the ingredients on the kitchen counter.
“Bianchi, this is Tsunayoshi, the new intern. He’ll be the one tasting your cake on air,” said Shouichi. He then turned to Tsuna. “When she pulls out the finished cake that’s in the oven, that’s your cue to walk up next to her. She’ll put a piece on your plate, and you take a bite and say that it’s delicious or something.”
“Sure,” said Tsuna. It was easy enough. And she didn’t seem abnormal at all. He was excited that it was his first time on television. He pulled out his phone and quickly sent a text message to his mom to let her know that he was going to be on TV.
“Five seconds ‘til air time,” announced Shouichi.
Bianchi straightened her blouse and smiled at the camera. “For all you cake lovers out there, here’s a quick chocolate cake recipe that guarantees a happy stomach for every occasion. What you’ll need is a little bit of self-raising flour, a little bit of sugar, a good amount of cocoa, a tiny dash of salt, a small amount of butter and milk, an egg, and some vanilla. Add those to a bowl and beat until it’s all mixed.”
Tsuna was astounded. There was absolutely no way anybody could follow the cryptic quantities of the ingredients. He began to feel a little anxious at the outcome of this segment.
As she poured the mix into a baking pan, Tsuna thought he saw smoke coming out of the liquid, but he immediately dismissed it. Because that was impossible.
“Then you bake at 350° for 45 minutes and then,” she opened the oven to pull out a finished cake, “you’ll have something absolutely delicious.”
While keeping his posture straight for the camera, Tsuna made his way to Bianchi who cut out a piece and served it on his plate. The smell was a little odd, but he thought it might’ve been because the cake was sitting in the oven for awhile. He noticed that the cake was a little on the dark purple side for a chocolate cake and-whoa, were those worms?
He looked at Shouichi who was off to the side and nodding in encouragement. Tsuna slowly stuck the fork into the cake and placed it in his mouth, chewing as fast as he could to rid himself of the bitterness coating his tongue. After he finally swallowed, his stomach made a gurgling noise. It was probably loud enough for the microphones to pick up. Then he remembered that he had to say something for the camera.
“It’s-“ Tsuna stopped mid-sentence because there were now shooting pains radiating from his belly. Instead of naturally wanting to double over, he struggled to do a thumbs up sign. “Mmmm,” he said shakily, probably unconvincingly, “It’s yummy.”
Suddenly, his knees felt weak and he smacked his head on the edge of the counter before he collided with the cold tile and saw black.
He woke up on a cot to someone softly humming. As Tsuna rubbed his eyes to discern where he was, he saw the smoker guy passed out in a cot next to him.
“Where am I?” Tsuna mumbled to himself. His stomach and surrounding organs didn’t feel so good.
“In the healing area,” said a voice that sounded like Giannini.
Tsuna sat up and saw the stockroom manager sitting a chair with his laptop.
“How are you feeling?” he asked Tsuna.
“Okay, I guess. I don’t know if she tried to poison me or if her cooking really is the worst thing on earth. What’s that guy doing here?” said Tsuna pointing to the one next to him.
“Hayato gets like that whenever he sees his sister. He walked in while you two were on air and then fainted.”
Tsuna didn’t understand, but he figured it would be best not to. “Ah!” he suddenly remembered. “So the newscast is over?”
“Yep,” said Giannini. “And the team is hard at work again gathering information for the next newscast at ten.”
“What happened after I blacked out?”
“Takeshi reported on sports. He was supposed to cover a variety of sports, but he focused a little too much on baseball. As expected since he used to play it. And then Ryohei interrupted him on camera and asked why he didn’t talk about boxing.”
Tsuna wrinkled his nose. “I think I know what happens next.”
Giannini chuckled. “Squalo got up from the main desk and went to the sports desk and told them both to shut up. Then Ryohei threatened to use his extreme boxing skills, which was a bad idea because Bel started to egg him on.”
“And then it ended in a fist fight?”
“Yes. Ryohei threw the first punch, and Squalo started hitting back. Takeshi tried to get them to stop, but that didn’t work. Then Bel came over and started chanting for them to fight. And then-I don’t remember who it was-but someone knocked the crown off Bel’s head and accidentally stepped on it. That got him mad and he pulled out these knives.”
“Glad I wasn’t there,” said Tsuna.
“That actually was kind of scary because it was my first time seeing Bel with knives. Squalo and Ryohei fight a lot so that’s nothing new. But as for Bel, that was a different side of him that I saw.”
Feeling strong enough in the legs (but not in the stomach), Tsuna stood up and hobbled towards the door. As he was in the middle of thanking Giannini for watching over him, Squalo threw the door open and nearly knocked over the intern.
“Where’s that damn wannabe prince?” he shouted in Tsuna’s ear. “He ruined my jacket with his fucking knives, and I’m going to fucking kill him!”
Tsuna was almost positive that his right eardrum stopped working. Furthermore, his stomach started making those weird noises again. This was too much. This wasn’t supposed to happen at all. He wanted to go home.
“Leave me alone! I don’t know!” he shrieked in a high voice he thought he lost after puberty. He pushed Squalo aside and bolted out the door.
He almost bumped into Shouichi and Dino in the hallway.
Shouichi grabbed his shoulders. “Tsunayoshi, are you all right? What’s wrong?”
“I-I don’t know if I can do this,” he confessed.
“Sure you can,” Dino said. “If I can do it, you can do it. You can’t expect everything to go your way in this business so you have to learn to adapt.”
“He’s right. You just have to learn to deal. With the people here, it’ll seem like we all hate each other, but we’re really just one big dysfunctional family. When the time comes, we help each other out because we know that things won’t be the same if one of us were gone.”
Strangely, Shouichi’s words brought a kind of light and warmth to Tsuna that began to silence his loquacious stomach. Maybe they were right. Maybe it was possible.
The best path isn’t always the easiest, Professor Reborn once told him.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Tsuna agreed. From this point on, there were to be no more doubts. There were people who believed in him so he had to believe in himself.
As Tsuna gazed out the window during the quiet bus ride home, he analyzed his experiences on the first day of his job. He met some really nice people. He met some not-so-nice people, but he supposed they could be nice if he knew them better. His first idea was readily accepted, but it ended up a being a bust through no fault of his own. Giannini seemed really grateful for Tsuna’s help in the stockroom so knew he didn’t mess that up. Tsuna saw Ryohei’s weather porn (and wished he hadn’t). Then he ate really horrible cake, fainted on live television, destroyed his stomach, and lost his hearing in one ear.
Maybe the second day would bring him broken limbs and total deafness.
Uh oh. The rumbling in his stomach was coming back. And the bile that was forming in his throat wasn’t a good sign either.
Great.
ID: gardener
Word count: 5524
Rating/Warnings: PG-13/language
Character(s) or pairing(s): Tsuna, Shouichi, Squalo, Bel, Dino, Ryohei, Gokudera, Giannini, Bianchi, Hibari
Theme challenge: YES
Tsunayoshi Sawada was lucky. And forever indebted to Professor Reborn, the scariest professor in Namimori University’s Department of Mass Communication, for hooking him up with an internship at a local television network after he had been rejected by all the other places.
It was his first day at the news station VGLA-TV 10. He had never heard of this station before, so when he looked it up online after hearing that he got the position, he didn’t find out much about it. Only that they prided themselves on being “unique.” Thus, Tsuna didn’t have high expectations for a small, B-class station, but he’d take any experience to beautify his résumé in order to offset his subpar grades.
He arrived at the station dressed in a new dark suit his mother bought him last month for his 20th birthday and a leather portfolio in hand. The facility looked much smaller than that of MLFR-TV 100 which he toured last semester on a field trip. This place wasn’t bustling with the energy and excitement that he imagined would take place in a fast-paced field; rather, it spoke volumes of dullness and unprofessionalism with its empty reception desk, wilted indoor plants, and too-silent hallways.
The person he was supposed to meet was Professor Reborn’s old student named Dino, but he had no idea what this he looked like. Tsuna cursed at himself for not writing down Dino’s phone number from their e-mails.
“Ummm… hello?” he called out to the empty lobby.
Expecting to hear nothing more than his own echo, Tsuna jumped a little when a bespectacled, red-haired man peered out from the last room down the hall.
“You’re Tsunayoshi?” he asked.
The intern gave a nod as the man fully emerged from the room and made his way towards him. Tsuna furiously rubbed his clammy hands on the side of his pants in preparation of a handshake.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Shouichi Irie, but you can call me Shouichi. I’m the newscast director of VGLA,” said the man.
Shouichi stood slightly taller than him and didn’t look too much older than twenty-five or so. Tsuna thought he looked like a fashion oxymoron with his grandpa-brown vest, grey slacks half a size too large, yellow Converses, and a black beret.
“We weren’t planning to hire interns since we’re in the process of downsizing, but Dino told me that his old professor recommended you. And he said that Professor Reborn is-and these are his words-‘very bright and has the ability to turn losers into stars.’ And Dino’s a talented guy so I couldn’t turn him down.” Shouichi chuckled and Tsuna forced himself to smile, unsure of whether to feel insulted or inspired.
“Thank you for giving me this opportunity,” Tsuna said.
Shouichi smiled and gave him a tour of the station. The video stockroom had a weird, musty smell to it, and Tsuna’s stomach turned a little when he learned that he would be spending a considerable amount of time there, logging tapes and searching for stock videos to be shown on the air.
The video control room down the hall would have taken Tsuna’s breath away with the high-tech video mixers if not for having to maneuver through a crunchy walkway of empty lollipop wrappers and sticks beneath his feet.
“Our technical director Spanner will show you how to make video composites. I’ve known him since high school, and he’s excellent at what he does-we’re very lucky to have him.”
Shouichi then went on to talk about practically everything in the room… except for the mess. It was there that Tsuna decided that the smelly stockroom was the lesser of the two evils. So far.
Tsuna was shocked (and a little relieved) when he was introduced to a normal-looking copy room. No odd smells, no littered floor. The machines didn’t appear to be outdated. Shouichi told him that part of his job would also include doing faxes and mail runs. Somehow, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to Tsuna if he ended up favoring this part of his internship.
“Our copier is only two years old, but it’s a little temperamental so you’ll have to kick it like this.” Shouichi demonstrated with a hard twack of his yellow shoe to the side of the machine.
Tsuna shed silent tears as his heart sank into a pool of confusion and misfortune. “Why don’t you get a new one?” he asked as casually as possible.
Shouichi explained that they couldn’t because of their limited resources. “The copier still works and should last for a good while as long as certain people were prevented from using it.”
Before Tsuna had a chance to ask about the details of these “certain people,” a tall man with a scar on his chin strolled into the room.
“It’s almost time for the meeting. Everyone’s waiting for you,” he said.
The red-haired man looked at his watch. “Yikes, it’s time! Thanks, Takeshi. Oh yeah, this is the new intern, Tsunayoshi Sawada.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Takeshi Yamamoto. I do the sportscasts here.”
They shook hands and followed Shouichi to the conference room where everyone seemed to turn deaf ears at a quarrel among three people: a guy with long, white hair (who looked really familiar to Tsuna for some reason), a blond guy with a tiara, and a guy with shades and a weird half-green haircut. They stopped when Shouichi stepped into the room.
“Sorry I’m late, guys. I was showing the new intern around. He’ll be helping out with the research and video editing as well as doing packages and voice overs. So I’m counting on you guys to teach him everything you know.” He then turned to Tsuna. “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”
As the intern scanned the faces in front of him, he came across some who looked genuinely curious (like Takeshi) and some who looked genuinely frightening (like the long-haired guy). Tsuna’s hands felt sweaty again, but he couldn’t dry them-the last thing he wanted to do was to make a bad impression on the first day.
“Uh, my name is Tsuna Sawada. I’m in my third year of studying broadcast journalism at Namimori University and-“
A man with a white band aid across his nose cut him off. “Do you like boxing?”
“N-not really…”
“God, Lawn Head. Quit with the boxing, you freak!” The surly voice belonged to a guy with a cigarette in hand. Though he was sharply dressed, something about him-maybe his ear piercings or the chunky rings decorating his fingers-definitely looked scary, akin to a former street thug.
Shouichi waved his hands in the air. “All right, you two! No more. We can’t scare Tsuna away.” Then he asked everyone in the room to introduce themselves to Tsuna.
But that proved to be pointless since he couldn’t remember the majority of their names. Except for that long-haired guy named Squalo, an anchorman, who he was pretty sure he’d seen before somewhere. And now he finally had a face to Dino, one of the field reporters and his contact through Professor Reborn. Dino, with his male model good looks and bright smile, made Tsuna’s face warm just a little. He learned that Dino was a loser before taking Professor Reborn’s class and went on to graduate with honors. Seeing a survivor of Professor Reborn in the flesh gave him a new level of confidence and gratitude.
The first task Tsuna received didn’t come from Shouichi but from Squalo.
“Boy! I want some coffee. Regular with cream. Two teaspoons. And no sugar because that’s gay.”
Tsuna dashed straight for the coffee maker in the corner of the room. “O-okay!”
“Aw, come on, Squalo,” Dino said half pleadingly. “Don’t force the menial tasks on him.”
Squalo glared at his blond colleague. “When I was an intern, I had to get coffee for that shitty Xanxus. This kid has to do the same if he wants to move up in this world.”
Beside him, Bel, the guy with the tiara, cackled. “I didn’t have to intern because I’m a prince.”
Tsuna hastily set down the coffee on the table in front of the scary man and hurried to the front next to his red-haired fortress.
The newscast director cleared his throat and opened the discussion of current events and news topics. Surprisingly, as if by magic, the room transformed into something entirely different. The people-no, the news team-had come prepared with their story ideas and nodded their heads to Shouichi’s directions. Once or twice, a secretary popped in with faxes about breaking news, and plans got altered with simple shrugs.
Impressed by the professionalism and harmonious adaptation to constant change of the VGLA-TV 10 team, Tsuna convinced himself he was in the right place. Until the spotlight was forced on him when Shouichi asked for his input for potential stories.
Tsuna chewed on his lip and tried hard to remember what he saw online the day before.
“Well, uh…. I think the zoo has a new exhibit. Or something…”
Around the table, looks were exchanged and whispers began to surface. Tsuna’s hands grew clammy once more and he eyed the door in front of him, wishing for it to spontaneously open so that he could make his escape.
“Sounds interesting,” Dino spoke up, “I’ll report on that. We need some good news once in awhile, right?”
Shouichi nodded. “That’s fine. After you get the contact information and details from Tsuna you can take a crew with you to the zoo, and we’ll have you do a live report for the six o’clock news.”
Squalo appeared to be muttering something under his breath, and Tsuna dared not ask what it was. Even though he tried to avoid looking at the menacing guy, he found himself unable to quench the strong feeling of recognition.
“You know,” Dino spoke up, “Tsuna really resembles the founder and first president of VGLA-TV. You’re related to him, right, Tsuna? I guess it makes sense that you’d have high aspirations to take over this station.”
Tsuna raised an eyebrow. “Ummm, that’s not really my goal and nobody in my family’s in this business.“
“Really? Professor Reborn sent me an e-mail this morning saying that you told him that it was your dream to take over VGLA-TV.”
“What? No, no, no!” Tsuna waved his hands frantically. “I never told him that. I don’t want to be the president! Really, I swear!”
The sharp sound of Squalo’s fist that pounded the table jerked everyone awake.
“Like hell this brat’s gonna be our tenth president!”
The scary smoker stubbed his cigarette and glared at Tsuna. “I won’t accept this loser to be the tenth. That’s going to be my position.”
Squalo stood up and shouted at the smoker. “VOOIIII! The tenth president is going to be Xanxus and no one else. Remember that, you douchebag!”
“And who the fuck are you calling a douchebag?”
It was just like Professor Reborn set this all up. Tsuna wanted to die.
Shouichi clasped his hands together. “Please, guys. It must be a misunderstanding so let’s all just calm down, okay?”
When the news team was dismissed, Tsuna stayed behind to wait for Shouichi to finish his phone calls. It was amazing how someone like him still remained composed despite being pulled in different directions as well as finding the time to mentor him.
“Sorry to make you wait,” Shouichi said after he hung up. “It’s about the time of day where things really start picking up so please forgive me if I seem like I’m in a hurry. Our financial reporter Mammon just called in sick and hasn’t finished editing his videos so we can’t air it today. That’s why I just called a last-minute replacement.”
As the two walked to the smelly video stockroom where Tsuna was to be spending the next few hours getting accustomed to the classification system and logging tapes, he asked about Xanxus and Squalo.
Shouichi adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “Xanxus is one of the top executives who’s most likely going to succeed the ninth president. He was the one Squalo used to intern for.”
“Squalo looks really familiar to me for some reason,” Tsuna admitted.
Shouichi laughed. “That’s because he used to be the model and spokesman for the Varia Herbal hair products. You’ve probably seen him in the commercials.”
“Oh yeah! Now I remember! So why did he switch careers?”
“It’s kind of funny. He has a broadcast journalism degree and interned for us when he was a student. But after he graduated, he was recruited by Varia Herbal so he did some modeling and acting for awhile there. When the company replaced him with another model named Kikyo, Squalo wasn’t happy at all. He threw a tantrum and I heard that some table flipping was involved. And we rehired him because he did a good job as an intern and he really wanted to be in front of the camera. And he’s been doing a good job since. Our ratings even went up thanks to him. But it’s an unspoken rule among us that we don’t mention Kikyo at all in front of Squalo. That’ll flip his switch. I guess he’s still pretty bitter about that.”
Terrific, Tsuna thought.
The next few hours went by more quickly than Tsuna anticipated. With the help of Giannini, the video stockroom manager, two days’ worth of tapes were properly categorized and shelved.
“Thanks for helping me, Tsuna,” said Giannini as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. “We’re a little understaffed and I just came back from vacation so things get piled up pretty quickly.”
They were interrupted when Shouichi, now holding a headset in one hand and a handheld radio in the other, stopped by to tell Tsuna that the evening news broadcast was going to take place in fifteen minutes and that he was more than welcome to observe.
This was the highlight of Tsuna’s day-seeing the ideas from hours ago transformed into actual newscasts. He made a mental note to himself to request to shadow Dino for a day to get away from being in the stockroom. When he entered the studio, it was dimmed except for the anchor table area and two green screens. Shouichi walked around the set to make sure that everyone was ready.
Squalo and Bel took their places at the main desk. Visually, they were an odd pair with Squalo in a crisp white shirt and blazer next to Bel who was wearing a loose purple and black striped shirt and still donning his tiara.
“Don’t get in my way this time,” Squalo growled to his co-anchor.
Bel broke into a grin. “We’ll see about that.”
Tsuna felt a little uneasy. “Are they going to be okay?” he whispered to Shouichi.
“They’ll be fine. It’s like this all the time.” Shouichi cleared his throat. “Okay, guys. We’re going on air in ten seconds. Five… four… three… two… one!”
The lights dimmed even more, and Tsuna watched the opening credits on a monitor next to him.
“Good evening,” said Bel pleasantly. “You’ve just tuned in to VGLA 10 with news you won’t find anywhere else. Because our news kicks the other stations’ asses. Ushishishi.”
Tsuna groaned inwardly. Should that guy really be saying that? Shouichi looked calm next to him so that probably meant he was fine with it. Though the camera didn’t catch it, Tsuna noticed Squalo rolling his eyes.
Squalo introduced the top stories, starting with an explosion at a bakery. The video article was narrated by what sounded like the bad-tempered smoker from earlier. When the clip was finished, the cameras went back to Squalo who added, “I hope they catch the motherfucker who did this because that’s my favorite bakery.”
“Mine too,” Bel chimed.
“Didn’t I tell you not to butt in, you retard?”
Bel flashed a wide smile in return. “Next, a man named Chikusa Kakimoto was arrested for homicide. Get this: he killed his victim with a yo-yo. No further information is available at this time, but we’ll keep you updated. Though I have to admit, the yo-yo is kinda cool.”
“Fuck, what kind of an idiot kills with a yo-yo?” said Squalo. “Better yet, what kind of an idiot dies from a yo-yo? People like that are just a waste of space and should just die.”
“You don’t have to worry about that guy anymore,” said Bel.
Tsuna was baffled. This wasn’t the type of newscast he was expecting. He looked over at Shouichi and saw that the redhead was biting his lip.
“Geez, the stupid people in this world,” Squalo muttered. “Okay, what’s next? I forgot.”
“Your mom,” said Bel.
“Shut the fuck up. I’ll kill you,” threatened Squalo.
Shouichi ran forward and air-traced the letters for “zoo” with his finger until Squalo got the hint.
“Next up,” said Squalo in a very irritated tone, “Dino is live at Namimori Zoo with his report on…” He squinted at the teleprompter in front him. “…on the newest exhibit. Man, that’s gay.”
The monitor showed a live feed of Dino holding a small turtle. Next to him was a man in a beige uniform with a yellow bird perched on one shoulder and a white owl perched on the other. In his hands was a hedgehog.
“I’m at Namimori Zoo with zookeeper Kyoya Hibari who’s here to tell us about the new exhibit where you can come in and pet small animals like the ones we have here. Can you tell us more about it?”
“You just said it,” said Kyoya. “There’s nothing more to say.”
“Well, uhhh… what kinds of animals can visitors pet?” asked Dino.
“The ones right here.”
“VOOIII!” interjected Squalo. “What the fuck is this? This isn’t news!”
A split screen of Squalo and Dino was shown to capture the conversation. Seeing his earlier impromptu idea boil to a failure, Tsuna vowed to never again bring up zoos.
“It’s news!” Dino said defensively. “We’re telling people about the new petting zoo.”
“It’s a stupid zoo with stupid animals who don’t do anything because they’re stupid,” said Squalo. “I should just go there and open all the cages. Or better yet, take some home for dinner.”
The zookeeper narrowed his eyes. “Are you threatening the animals? I’ll bite you to death.”
Tsuna flinched at the iciness of the zookeeper’s voice. He definitely sounded like a man Tsuna didn’t want to cross paths with.
“Now, now,” said Dino nervously as he placed a hand on Kyoya’s shoulder. “Let’s all be friends, okay?”
“Bring it on, pansy!” sneered Squalo. “I’ll take you down!”
Kyoya stepped away from Dino. He shifted the hedgehog to one hand and, in the blink of an eye, produced a tonfa from his sleeve. “You’re too close to me,” he said to the reporter.
“God,” barked Squalo, “get that bastard out of my sight. He’s pissing me off!”
Kyoya approached the camera. “You’re annoying.”
“Wait, no! Stop!” Dino shouted in the background as Kyoya jammed his tonfa into the camera lens, disconnecting the live feed.
The telecast immediately went to a commercial break, and Shouichi buried his face in his hands.
“Oh God,” he murmured.
“Is it always like this?” Tsuna questioned.
“Yes. I know I should expect it to degenerate into chaos every time, but a part of me hopes it would go smoothly. But the viewers seem to like this style so I haven’t bothered to make our newscasts perfect. All I can do is to keep things from spinning completely out of control.”
After the commercials, Bel introduced the weather segment and weatherman Ryohei Sasagawa. The cameras turned to the boxing guy in front of a green screen.
“Today was extremely sunny with a high of 80° and this will continue on for the next two days. A cold front is going to move in this weekend and we’re expecting it to be extremely cloudy with a chance of rain. So for all you boxers who do morning training, better get out those warmer clothes and your umbrellas!”
At this point, Tsuna seriously questioned Shouichi’s thought process in hiring these people. And the sanity of the viewers who supposedly propagated this craziness.
When the seven-day forecast was shown on the screen, Shouichi’s “What the hell?” described Tsuna’s thoughts exactly. The weather graphics looked unlike any he’d seen before. It was comprised of childish doodles and weird animation. The sun was smiling and wearing sunglasses. For the expected rain on Thursday, an umbrella with a J-shaped handle was rocking back and forth next to a bobbing cloud with raindrops in the background.
“Well, this is new,” said Bel.
“What the hell? That’s the shittiest set of graphics I’ve ever seen in my life!” said Squalo.
Ryohei curled a fist. “Hey, don’t diss my extreme graphics! I stayed up all night making them!”
Bel tilted his head. “They’re extreme all right. Looks like the umbrella is humping the cloud. And the voyeuristic sun is happily watching them have sex.”
“Christ, we don’t want your weather porn,” said Squalo.
“Shut up!” yelled Ryohei.
Now that Squalo called it “weather porn,” Tsuna couldn’t look at it any other way. He mentally retracted his thought earlier about this being the right place for him. It wasn’t. It was just a collection of wackos who didn’t care that the cameras were filming.
“I wish he would’ve shown this to me before we aired it,” said Shouichi.
“Moving on to something that’s less gay…” said Squalo, “Never mind, it’s Lussuria with entertainment news.”
The cameras showed a guy who Tsuna immediately recognized as the one with the shades and weird haircut from the meeting. He was behind an unfamiliar desk. Tsuna strained his neck around the studio to see where he was located. Then he remembered being told there was a studio next door and concluded that the Lussuria guy was probably in there.
“Hi everyone!” said Lussuria in a singsong voice. “This is Mama Lussuria and here’s the latest on what’s happening in the entertainment industry. Actress Haru Miura reportedly broke her leg today while filming an action scene in her latest movie. Sad, isn’t it? But what’s even sadder is this atrocity she wore when the paparazzi snapped a shot of her walking her dog last week.”
On the monitor, Tsuna saw a picture of a brunette with her hair in a high ponytail wearing an off-the-shoulder dress with an explosion of colorful patterns holding a leash to her chihuahua. She didn’t seem that bad to Tsuna.
“I would throw up, but the rainbow already did. Moving on, we have an announcement that Chinese pop idol I-pin will be making a stop here in Namimori for her tour and blah, blah. So booooring. Next, in the modeling world, supermodel Hana Kurokawa throws her cell phone at a little kid…we don’t care…oh! The Calvin Klein ad starring underwear model Lambo has been revealed this morning and, believe me, it is hot. There’s nothing sexier than seeing a man with toned abs and sweat beads around his face. Oooh! I’m getting a little warm just thinking about it.”
“Are you done being a faggot?” Squalo cut in.
“I’m not done with my report,” said Lussuria with a pout. “Anyway…I have a riddle for you guys. What’s blue and red, wears a dark suit, and is sex on legs?”
“Squalo’s mom,” Bel answered nonchalantly as the crew around Tsuna tried to hide their snickers.
“Shut the fuck up with my mom!” roared Squalo.
“I think I’m getting a stomachache,” said Shouchi weakly.
“Are you okay?” whispered Tsuna.
“I’ll be okay.”
“Wrong,” said Lussuria. “It’s our favorite dichromatic-eyed magician Mukuro Rokudo! He’s going to have a special performance on TV that’s set to air next month. And for his new trick, he’s going to escape from a water prison. Sounds sexy, doesn’t it? Mukuro all naked and wet and tied up-oops! Looks like I’m out of time now. Back to you, Bel and Squalo.”
“That’s Squalo and Bel,” Squalo firmly corrected, ignoring Bel’s cackling next to him. He faced the camera. “Apparently, Lussuria took too long with his gayness so now we have to go to a commercial break. Don’t change the channel or else.”
Shouichi left Tsuna to run to the other studio. Tsuna had to admit-as messed up as this newscast was, he could see how others would find it entertaining.
“Tsunayoshi,” said Shouichi catching his breath, “You’re going to be on TV. Remember when I told you I called in a replacement? It’s Bianchi and her cooking segment. All you have to do is to eat the food that she will make and say that you like it. We don’t have much time so come next door with me.”
Before Tsuna could respond, he was being tugged by the sleeve. In the other studio, a slim, pretty woman was straightening the ingredients on the kitchen counter.
“Bianchi, this is Tsunayoshi, the new intern. He’ll be the one tasting your cake on air,” said Shouichi. He then turned to Tsuna. “When she pulls out the finished cake that’s in the oven, that’s your cue to walk up next to her. She’ll put a piece on your plate, and you take a bite and say that it’s delicious or something.”
“Sure,” said Tsuna. It was easy enough. And she didn’t seem abnormal at all. He was excited that it was his first time on television. He pulled out his phone and quickly sent a text message to his mom to let her know that he was going to be on TV.
“Five seconds ‘til air time,” announced Shouichi.
Bianchi straightened her blouse and smiled at the camera. “For all you cake lovers out there, here’s a quick chocolate cake recipe that guarantees a happy stomach for every occasion. What you’ll need is a little bit of self-raising flour, a little bit of sugar, a good amount of cocoa, a tiny dash of salt, a small amount of butter and milk, an egg, and some vanilla. Add those to a bowl and beat until it’s all mixed.”
Tsuna was astounded. There was absolutely no way anybody could follow the cryptic quantities of the ingredients. He began to feel a little anxious at the outcome of this segment.
As she poured the mix into a baking pan, Tsuna thought he saw smoke coming out of the liquid, but he immediately dismissed it. Because that was impossible.
“Then you bake at 350° for 45 minutes and then,” she opened the oven to pull out a finished cake, “you’ll have something absolutely delicious.”
While keeping his posture straight for the camera, Tsuna made his way to Bianchi who cut out a piece and served it on his plate. The smell was a little odd, but he thought it might’ve been because the cake was sitting in the oven for awhile. He noticed that the cake was a little on the dark purple side for a chocolate cake and-whoa, were those worms?
He looked at Shouichi who was off to the side and nodding in encouragement. Tsuna slowly stuck the fork into the cake and placed it in his mouth, chewing as fast as he could to rid himself of the bitterness coating his tongue. After he finally swallowed, his stomach made a gurgling noise. It was probably loud enough for the microphones to pick up. Then he remembered that he had to say something for the camera.
“It’s-“ Tsuna stopped mid-sentence because there were now shooting pains radiating from his belly. Instead of naturally wanting to double over, he struggled to do a thumbs up sign. “Mmmm,” he said shakily, probably unconvincingly, “It’s yummy.”
Suddenly, his knees felt weak and he smacked his head on the edge of the counter before he collided with the cold tile and saw black.
He woke up on a cot to someone softly humming. As Tsuna rubbed his eyes to discern where he was, he saw the smoker guy passed out in a cot next to him.
“Where am I?” Tsuna mumbled to himself. His stomach and surrounding organs didn’t feel so good.
“In the healing area,” said a voice that sounded like Giannini.
Tsuna sat up and saw the stockroom manager sitting a chair with his laptop.
“How are you feeling?” he asked Tsuna.
“Okay, I guess. I don’t know if she tried to poison me or if her cooking really is the worst thing on earth. What’s that guy doing here?” said Tsuna pointing to the one next to him.
“Hayato gets like that whenever he sees his sister. He walked in while you two were on air and then fainted.”
Tsuna didn’t understand, but he figured it would be best not to. “Ah!” he suddenly remembered. “So the newscast is over?”
“Yep,” said Giannini. “And the team is hard at work again gathering information for the next newscast at ten.”
“What happened after I blacked out?”
“Takeshi reported on sports. He was supposed to cover a variety of sports, but he focused a little too much on baseball. As expected since he used to play it. And then Ryohei interrupted him on camera and asked why he didn’t talk about boxing.”
Tsuna wrinkled his nose. “I think I know what happens next.”
Giannini chuckled. “Squalo got up from the main desk and went to the sports desk and told them both to shut up. Then Ryohei threatened to use his extreme boxing skills, which was a bad idea because Bel started to egg him on.”
“And then it ended in a fist fight?”
“Yes. Ryohei threw the first punch, and Squalo started hitting back. Takeshi tried to get them to stop, but that didn’t work. Then Bel came over and started chanting for them to fight. And then-I don’t remember who it was-but someone knocked the crown off Bel’s head and accidentally stepped on it. That got him mad and he pulled out these knives.”
“Glad I wasn’t there,” said Tsuna.
“That actually was kind of scary because it was my first time seeing Bel with knives. Squalo and Ryohei fight a lot so that’s nothing new. But as for Bel, that was a different side of him that I saw.”
Feeling strong enough in the legs (but not in the stomach), Tsuna stood up and hobbled towards the door. As he was in the middle of thanking Giannini for watching over him, Squalo threw the door open and nearly knocked over the intern.
“Where’s that damn wannabe prince?” he shouted in Tsuna’s ear. “He ruined my jacket with his fucking knives, and I’m going to fucking kill him!”
Tsuna was almost positive that his right eardrum stopped working. Furthermore, his stomach started making those weird noises again. This was too much. This wasn’t supposed to happen at all. He wanted to go home.
“Leave me alone! I don’t know!” he shrieked in a high voice he thought he lost after puberty. He pushed Squalo aside and bolted out the door.
He almost bumped into Shouichi and Dino in the hallway.
Shouichi grabbed his shoulders. “Tsunayoshi, are you all right? What’s wrong?”
“I-I don’t know if I can do this,” he confessed.
“Sure you can,” Dino said. “If I can do it, you can do it. You can’t expect everything to go your way in this business so you have to learn to adapt.”
“He’s right. You just have to learn to deal. With the people here, it’ll seem like we all hate each other, but we’re really just one big dysfunctional family. When the time comes, we help each other out because we know that things won’t be the same if one of us were gone.”
Strangely, Shouichi’s words brought a kind of light and warmth to Tsuna that began to silence his loquacious stomach. Maybe they were right. Maybe it was possible.
The best path isn’t always the easiest, Professor Reborn once told him.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Tsuna agreed. From this point on, there were to be no more doubts. There were people who believed in him so he had to believe in himself.
As Tsuna gazed out the window during the quiet bus ride home, he analyzed his experiences on the first day of his job. He met some really nice people. He met some not-so-nice people, but he supposed they could be nice if he knew them better. His first idea was readily accepted, but it ended up a being a bust through no fault of his own. Giannini seemed really grateful for Tsuna’s help in the stockroom so knew he didn’t mess that up. Tsuna saw Ryohei’s weather porn (and wished he hadn’t). Then he ate really horrible cake, fainted on live television, destroyed his stomach, and lost his hearing in one ear.
Maybe the second day would bring him broken limbs and total deafness.
Uh oh. The rumbling in his stomach was coming back. And the bile that was forming in his throat wasn’t a good sign either.
Great.