A/N: hey all! this is my first KHR fic. Everyone's in Italy and Tsuna's has taken over Vongola. this is set ten years later. so this is actually a one shot from the TYL!KHR world I sort of have written in my private stash of fics. I thought that if Hayato is the right hand man, everyone else must have some sort of role as well! thus, in this fic, Takeshi handles internal Vongola affairs. Ryohei handles affairs regarding the guardians. Mukuro handles information resourcing. Kyoya handles external affairs. and Lambo takes care of matters regarding the next vongola generation. it's not that important to know all these stuff but i thought it would be interesting to share a bit about what the characters are working as. anyway, Enjoy!

"Another one?" Hayato watched as his beloved boss groaned and slammed his head onto the oak desk.

"I thought it was a one off thing, Hayato. What's going on?" The brunette whined. He squeezed his eyes shut and hoped the stupid letter in front of him would disappear. Tsuna heard his right hand man inching forward. Cool fingers met his forehead and gently lifted his head up to slide the letter from under him. Hayato then gently lowered his head back onto the desk, gently combed through his fringe, and stepped back. Hayato was always gentle with him. Tsuna smiled to himself, knowing that Hayato couldn't see his amusement.

His right hand man gave a thoughtful hum as he read through the letter. "The Moretti Famiglia, huh? They're one of the fastest growing new families. The information we have on them so far shows that they're clean." Hatato recited from off the top of his head.

"That's not the point, Hayato. And why are they all guys?!" Tsuna groaned. The current problem at hand was a string of letters from different famiglias asking for permission to date or marry the Vongola. It was troublesome because the letters were all very insistent and they were all from men.

"It's alright, Tenth. I know what to do about this." Hayato whipped out his phone and pressed a number on speed dial.

"We have an issue… Yes, of course it's important! … It's your job… Look, boss received another letter…"

Before Hayato could continue the conversation, the door to Tsuna's office burst open and slammed shut again. Tsuna bolted up immediately to see Kyoya walking towards them with a frown on his face as he slipped his phone into the pocket under his jacket.

Tsuna turned to Hayato with a confused look. "You called Kyoya?!"

Seeing as the person he called has arrived, Hayato put away his phone. "This is a matter of external affairs. It's Hibari's domain."

Tsuna groaned and replaced his head onto the wooden surface. If Kyoya was gonna get involved, things were gonna get complicated and messy.

Not to mention the death rate and incapacitation would shoot up as well.

Hayato must have handed the letter over to Kyoya because he could hear the familiar thoughtful 'hnn' coming from Kyoya.

"So it has spread to even the newer families." Kyoya concluded.

"Does this mean we need to involve the pineapple haired bastard as well?" Hayato asked in a serious voice.

"NO." Mukuro should never be involved in issues regarding such things.

"Hnn… I believe he would greatly aid in the removal and eradication of this particular problem."

If Kyoya didn't mind working with Mukuro, it was a sign that some people were seriously gonna die. And that the skylark was seriously irritated.

There was a knock on the door and Tsuna heard someone slip in before the door closed again.

"What are you doing here, you baseball freak?!" Hayato all but shouted.

"Hey! Everyone's here!" Came Takeshi's happy voice. "I've got some stuff I need to report to Tsuna about."

"Well, get on it!"

"Maa, calm down Hayato." Nevertheless, the rain guardian complied. "There's been an increase the number of spies seen in the vicinity of the Vongola manor. Also, apparently some of the new recruits reported that they've seen some of the maids crying over something about 'the good looking ones always being unavailable'."

Tsuna raised his head to see that Kyoya had silently handed the cursed letter over to Takeshi to have a look at.

"Another one?" Takeshi laughed as he read the contents. "This guy really seems excited to finally have a chance!"

Even though Takeshi was laughing, Tsuna could feel the heavy, dark aura that his rain guardian was emitting.

"I'm going to bite him to death." Kyoya stated and Takeshi nodded like he approved. Apparently there was some unspoken thing going on between the two.

"Actually, now that I think about it, all these problems started ever since we got these things done." Takeshi's fingers lightly flicked the blue stud on his right ear. "Maybe it's a curse or something."

"You idiot. What does getting a piercing have anything to do with the increase in marriage proposals from the bosses of other famiglias?!" The mention of piercings had Hayato unconsciously reaching to his right ear to play with his two new studs – one in orange and one in red.

"It was just a guess." Takeshi shrugged. "Ryohei told me that ever since Lambo got his, the kids in school have started picking on him."

"What!? They're bullying him just because the idiot cow has some fashion issues?" Tsuna knew Hayato was really protective over Lambo but he just didn't want to admit it directly. It made his storm guardian all the more endearing.

"The cow's school is the one behind the park, right?" Kyoya asked and Takeshi nodded in confirmation.

"Kyoya, please don't terrorize school children. You're not a discipline prefect anymore." Tsuna reminded. Kyoya gave him a look that clearly stated that Tsuna's opinions did not matter at the moment.

Tsuna took a deep breath to calm himself down. His current mantra was 'my guardians know what they're doing'. It wasn't working so well though. He trusted his guardians in important matters but they could be so very dramatic at times.

But now that Takeshi mentioned it, these things did indeed start two weeks ago when they had first gotten their piercing. It was one of those events where things got out of control just because of a simple, small issue:

It started because of Ipin. Ipin was going through that phase in a teenage girl's life where they would idolise guys from boy bands or TV actors. Ipin was currently obsessed over a Japanese boy band and her room was filled with multitudes of posters and merchandise of these idols.

This, of course, affected Lambo. Lambo was going through that phase in a teenage boy's life where all he wanted to do was to impress the girls around him. Apparently, Lambo saw the posters up in Ipin's room and decided that there was a particular factor that made these idols cool.

Ear piercings.

The various shiny studs that adorned the ears of these idols were eye catching and totally in style. In the end, Lambo wanted to get an ear piercing. But he didn't want to do it alone. That can only mean one thing.

"Tsuna-nii! Get a piercing with me!" Lambo all but demanded.

Despite being the boss of the top mafia familglia in the word, Tsuna still had a list of things that scared him. Having a foreign object impaled through a part of his body was definitely an item on that list. It was exaggerated, yes. But even if it was only the lobe of his ear, it would still hurt right?

There was no way Tsuna was going to get his ear pierced.

But Lambo, the youngest guardian, insisted. Well, more like Lambo whined and pleaded a whole lot. Anyway, somehow, Tsuna found himself in a chair at a local accessory shop with a nice lady preparing some sort of mental contraption that was going to open up a hole in his ear lobe.

"Relax, it will only feel like an ant's bite." Was what she said before loading the piercing gun with something that Lambo picked out. "Now which side would you like me to pierce?"

Tsuna decided on the right side simply because his right ear lobe felt like it was thinner than the left. It would definitely hurt less if the lobe was thinner, right?

"Right." Tsuna replied with a shaky voice. Lambo had his hands on Tsuna's shoulder, holding him down.

It wasn't so bad.

It didn't hurt.

There was a 'click', and just like that, it was over.

This was nothing compared to the holes made by Reborn with that gun of his.

After seeing Tsuna's reaction, Lambo lost all fear. He copied Tsuna-nii and had his ear pierced on the right side as well. Just like that, the two of them left the shop with a reminder to clean the piercing with the given alcohol solution at least once a day.

"That wasn't so bad, was it, Tsuna-nii?" Lambo was smiling brightly as he check out the new electric-green stud that adorned his ear.

Tsuna smiled at how happy Lambo was just because of a simply piercing. He checked out his own piercing (an orange stud) before replying with a smile: "It wasn't so bad, Lambo."

At that time, Tsuna had no idea it was only going to get worse.

The guardian's dramatic antics started the moment they reached home. Hayato was the first to react upon receiving them at the front door of the Vongola manor.

"Juudaime! Is that a piercing?!" Hayato screeched and made a huge fuss over the 'injury'.

The next day, unsurprisingly, Hayato reported to Tsuna's office with a huge, proud grin on his face and a new shiny orange stud on his right ear.

"If Juudaime has one, I want one too because it's so cool!" Hayato declared.

Unsurprisingly, Takeshi reacted to this new chain of events. The word unsurprising shouldn't even be applied to his guardians anymore because in retrospect, Tsuna should have been able to predict all these following even from the start. His guardians were very predictable after all.

Anyway, Takeshi saw the piercings that Tsuna, Lambo, and Hayato now had and concluded it was a new group identity for their family.

"This is so cool! I always thought our group needed a group identity!" Takeshi exclaimed with a smile on his face as he showed off the new piercing in his right ear during dinner time. The blue stud shimmered brightly under the dining room lights and it easily caught everyone's attention.

Ryohei, who was currently in charge of all guardian related affairs, approved of the idea of a group identity. Loudly, he commended Tsuna for starting the extreme trend. The next day, Ryohei, with his new yellow stud in his right ear, informed Kyoya, Mukuro and Chrome that all guardians were required to get a piercing for identity purposes.

Upon realising that Chrome didn't have her ears piercing, Kyoko and Haru proceeded to drag her to get her ears done and started educating her about the different types of studs and earrings that could compliment her style. Chrome attended dinner that night with a pair of indigo studs on her ears.

Kyoya was the only sane one. "Stupid herbivores. We already have a group identity." He held up his hand with the cloud Vongola ring resting on his finger. Ryohei's mouth had formed an 'Oh' shape and he laughed it off awkwardly.

"Maa, Kyoya, don't you think that Tsuna looks cooler and sexier with the piercing?" Takeshi's eyes were twinkling with mischief and a hint of something unspoken. Kyoya's eyes darted to examine the piercing on the omnivore. It did make Tsuna seem more confident. With a 'hnn', the cloud guardian left.

It was only three days later that Tsuna saw the cloud guardian again, this time with a deep purple stud in his right ear. It made Kyoya look more dangerous and somehow Kyoya's piercing gave him a deadly aura.

That very same day, Mukuro got into a fight with Hibari.

"Oyaa oyaa! That piercing looks good on you, birdy!" Mukuro commented.

"Getting distracted, pineapple?" Hibari smirked.

Mukuro hummed. "It is indeed distracting. Where did you get it done?"

The rest of the conversation was covered by the sound of the west wing of the manor crumbling.

The next day, Hayato was reporting about the damage in the west wing when Tsuna noticed something.

"You got another piercing, Hayato?" Tsuna pointed out the second, red piercing above the first, orange one.

"Mukuro just got a new piercing his morning." Takeshi explained. Tsuna, too, had noticed the light purple stud in the illusionist's right ear earlier on. What does that have to do with Hayato's new piercing?

"He wanted to beat everyone else so he got one more than everyone else." Takeshi explained with a knowing smirk. Hayato jabbed him with an elbow.

"Shut up, baseball freak! I just thought it would look cooler."

That day was the first day that Tsuna received his first marriage proposal. Hayato took over the entire situation.

"Don't worry, Juudaime, I'll handle this." The storm guardian pulled out his phone as he walked out. Later that day, reports from various sources informed the Vongola boss that an established mafia group was eradicated that day due to some territorial issues. Tsuna didn't think much of it.

Within the next two days, Tsuna received five more proposals. Hayato intercepted them and simply told Tsuna that he would handle it. It wasn't until the proposal today that Tsuna had found out that Hayato had been passing information to the rest of the guardians and that Hayato's way of handling things was to summon Kyoya to eliminate the source of the problem.

Tsuna was brought out from his own musings by a third knock on the door.

Mukuro had arrived.

Shit, they really did summon Mukuro.

"Oyaa oyaa, you guys are having a party and you didn't invite me?" Mukuro sauntered in and perched himself on the window sill behind Tsuna. "So what's going on?"

Kyoya had pulled out his Tonfas. Hayato pulled out a couple of dynamite sticks just in case the two started to fight.

'Please don't fight in this room.' Became Tsuna's silent prayer.

"Let's not fight in this room, everyone." Takeshi waved a hand to signal for Kyoya to put down his tonfas but Takeshi himself had a hand on his katana.

Tsuna rolled his eyes at their childishness. It was as if the guardians' weapons could talk or something because they always greeted each other by pulling out their weapons.

"There's been another letter." Kyoya was speaking to Mukuro.

Mukuro grinned maniacally. "From who?"

"Niccolo Raviatti from the Moretti family."

"Shall we?" Mukuro opened up the window and gestured towards Kyoya.

Kyoya smirked. "Ladies first."

Crap.

"Stop! Everyone stop!" Tsuna had enough. He pulled Mukuro, who had his feet on the ledge of the window, back into the room and shut the window.

"Everyone sit." Tsuna growled. Hayato obediently sat straight down onto the floor while Takeshi casually plopped down onto the nearest chair. Kyoya huffed and went to lean against the far wall. Mukuro gave an awkward chuckle and remained sitting on the window sill.

"We need to hold a meeting to discuss the emergence of all these marriage proposals. From men nonetheless!" Tsuna was so frustrated. He could understand if other famiglias wanted to marry their daughters off to him. It was common. But having multitudes of men chasing after him all of a sudden was definitely not common.

"Oh? You do not understand why the men are chasing you?" Mukuro was legitimately surprised and everyone turned to him.

"You mean you know why these proposals are occurring?" Hayato had stood up from the floor. "Well, tell us!"

Tsuna watched as Mukuro assessed their expressions one by one in surprise.

"You mean you really don't know why only men are proposing?"

"TELL US WHY YOU IDIOT PINEAPPLE!"

"If you know why then you should inform us, Mukuro. We have been investigating this matter for quite some time now." Takeshi spoke in a serious voice. Kyoya was watching in silence. Tsuna knew the skylark, too, was curious but too prideful to ask his nemesis.

Mukuro burst out in laughter. "Oh my. This is too priceless."

There was a fourth knock on the door. Reborn entered the room.

Everyone acknowledged the adult arcobaleno with a nod. Reborn raised a brow as he probably did not expect to see so many guardians in the same room together.

"Welcome back, Reborn." Tsuna gave his mentor a smile, glad to have the sun arcobaleno back to aid in their current problem. Reborn had been on a mission for the past 3 weeks now and had missed all the drama. He had some catching up to do.

"Tsuna, what's going on here?" Reborn walked towards his desk but suddenly stopped right before he reached the chair. "Is that a piercing?!"

"Yup! We all have one!" Takeshi added enthusiastically showing off his stud.

"We have decided that it would be our group identity." Hayato reported.

Reborn blinked in surprise. "A right ear piercing as your group identity?"

Mukuro started laughing so hard he fell off the sill.

Tsuna ignored the mist guardian. "What's wrong with having a piercing?"

Reborn raised a brow. "Dame-Tsuna. You know that a right side piercing is a declaration of being gay, right?"

What?

Wait. What?

That means that they had a group identity of being gay?

Suddenly, everything made sense. The proposals from other guys from other families; the maids saying that the good ones were all unavailable; that Lambo's school mates were bullying him.

Tsuna spun around to glare at Mukuro who burst into laughter the moment their eyes met. That was why Mukuro was laughing so hard!

With a groan, Tsuna dropped his head back onto the table and hoped that the rest of his problems would disappear.

And then, it was as if everything went back to normal:

"So, birdy, shall we?" Mukuro had the window opened again. With a growl, Kyoya followed the mist guardian out of the window. They had some hunting to do.

"Oi!" Hayato ran to the window and called out to the two predators. "If you kill anyone, remember to lead the trail away from us first, alright!? We don't want the incident from last year happening again!"

Mukuro's creepy laughter was the last thing Tsuna heard before the two were well gone.

"Well, time to update Ryohei and do some damage control in Lambo's school." Takeshi strolled away while whistling a tune from Ipin's favourite band.

"Boss, you'll be fine with Reborn here, right?"

"Don't even say the word 'right'. I don't ever want to hear that word. Ever."

"Cheer up, boss, it's not that bad." somehow, it seemed like the guardians had no problem with this issue. And Tsuna had no idea why.

The door closed leaving Tsuna alone with his tutor. He heard a sigh and suddenly there was a hand ruffling his hair.

"Dame-Tsuna. I leave you alone for a couple of weeks and you go and get yourself into so much trouble."

"What should I do, Reborn?" it seemed like an irreversible problem. Cold fingers touched his ear lobe and tugged gently on the piercing that was the source of all his problems.

"It's not that bad." Reborn repeated the words from Hayato.

There was silence for a moment as Reborn continued to play with the stud while Tsuna reflected on life.

The fingers suddenly stilled.

"You have something you want to say, Reborn?"

Reborn remained silent. That was strange.

"Reborn?"

"You know, things are only going to get worse from here on." It was a statement.

"Why is that so?"

"You do realise that so far, your guardians are only fighting against proposals from external sources?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Baka-Tsuna. What happens when there is a proposal from an internal source?"

"An internal source?"

"Yes. Like internal."

"Internal? You mean like within my guardi-." Tsuna did not even want to complete that sentence. "Oh God."

"It is a nice piercing though. Maybe I should get one…"

Tsuna groaned.

And that was the beginning of the arc that would later be deemed as The Piercing Catalyst.

A/N: hope you enjoyed that! it was just something fun for me to write. Cheers! :)