Title: The Greatest Team Ever Assembled
Universe: Reborn
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: lightly, vaguely RyoheixHibari
Warnings/Spoilers: None I can imagine.
Word Count: 1,394
Summary: Sequel of sorts to "Rivals"- Rivals always have to challenge each other.
Dedication: swinku- THE FANART IS AMAZING AND I LOVE YOU.
A/N: LOL I wrote this a little faster than I'd planned to, but I just needed to write something after seeing SW's art. No planning necessary, I guess. Heh.
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.
When Hibari is in the midst of lecturing a pair of ill-behaved students he'd caught gambling behind the school during lunch, Ryohei is right there behind him, looking stern with his arms crossed and his chin tilted outward in what is supposed to be his most intimidating pose. It gives Hibari's trademark image of the dark-knight, lone-wolf type disciplinary committee member a decidedly off-kilter twist, making him look like some sort of juvenile delinquent gang leader in the middle of a turf war with a couple of upstarts rather than the fearsome enforcer of the status quo he is supposed to be.
He sighs. "And go," he tells the offenders eventually, because this isn't working and Ryohei for some reason, always seems to put a dampener on his menacing aura.
The two boys nod and scamper off with clear expressions of relief on their faces, and he hears one whisper to the other— "that was weird"— as they leave. They aren't wrong, to be fair.
He turns around to face the boxer whose presence has made things weird (and who has continued to make things weird for the past week and a half now). Hibari is clearly irritated.
Clearly.
Unmistakably.
Ryohei doesn't get it, and grins broadly when Hibari looks at him. "Wow, we showed them, didn't we?" he marvels, and easily hooks an arm around the other boy's more slender shoulders, like they're familiar with each other and Hibari allows that sort of thing on a regular basis or something. "We make a great team, eh?"
Hibari slams a fist into the other boy's gut because he can't help himself, and it's been a long time since he's met someone who can make him lose his cool with just one stupid, clueless smile, with just one casual, almost obliviously intimate touch.
Ryohei doubles over after he's hit, but never stops grinning. He looks up at Hibari with one eye shut and the expression in the open eye makes the other boy look away first, even though he's not the one bent in half and aching. The gesture leaves enough of an opening for Ryohei to answer with a punch into the dark-haired boy's stomach though, and soon that not-bent-in-half-and-aching thing is fixed for Hibari.
"Right back atcha!" Ryohei exclaims with a little laugh, and then takes a breath and straightens again, despite the fact that he's still hurting.
Only an idiot like this would believe a sock in the stomach means encouragement for a job well done.
Hibari clenches his teeth and straightens too, and just barely refrains from punching the grinning moron in the jaw next.
"We are not a team," he hisses, and tries not to grudgingly accept the fact that a mindless thug like Sasagawa can have such a mule-kick punch when he wants to. His stomach will probably be bruised tomorrow. "We will never be a team."
Ryohei stops to think about that, brow furrowing. "Well," he allows after a moment, "it's true that we're rivals, I guess. But you're such a nice guy I can't help but like you lots! And we work good together."
"Well together," Hibari corrects automatically—without thinking even— and then is left blinking at himself, hoping that whatever Ryohei has isn't contagious or something.
Oh god.
"Yeah, that!" Ryohei agrees, grinning and oblivious to Hibari's current distress. His smile is easy even if he still has raccoon eyes from when the other boy had broken his nose last week.
He looks absolutely ridiculous.
Hibari suddenly has a headache, and really doesn't want to fight the idiot anymore. "Don't you have training to do somewhere, or something?" he suggests, because all he really wants is to get his lunchtime rounds done and then go relax someplace quiet.
Ryohei shakes his head—vigorously, like he does everything—and that grin looks like it's going to split his face. "Nope! This is the best training I could get," he assures Hibari, and pats the other boy heartily on the back (the contact earning him a sharp elbow to the chin). "See?" he says, rubbing his rapidly bruising jaw line as he looks at Hibari with a mixture of admiration and challenge. "You're fast."
Hibari fights the urge to roll his eyes. "Maybe you're just slow."
Ryohei answers by trying a left hook for Hibari's face, which the smaller boy easily dodges, dropping to the ground on his haunches and sweeping Ryohei's feet out from under him. The other boy lands flat on his back— winded— and Hibari stands again, foot putting just the slightest bit of pressure on the boxer's throat as he looms above him. "Like I said," he begins, drolly, "slow."
Ryohei's eyes are a mixture of awe and excitement as he looks up at the dark-haired boy—none of the fear that should be there exists. That's one of the most infuriating things about him, Hibari thinks. His inability to be scared. The moron doesn't have an ounce of self-preservation in him.
"You're amazing," Ryohei breathes suddenly—unprompted— and means every word of it.
Hibari falters.
And maybe that's what the surprising idiot had been waiting for all along, because suddenly there are two hands wrapped around the dark-haired boy's ankle and pulling hard. Immediately after that the world is rushing up to meet him, and all he can think of is that that's never happened to him before. He's never been so easy to distract.
He lands on top of Ryohei with a rather indignant "oof," and he can feel the other boy's kneecap poking him in the back of the neck, can feel the way Sasagawa's chest rises and falls under his calves. Winded and gasping, Hibari stares at the sky for a moment and doesn't know what to think about being bested like that. Of all the idiotic things.
"Wow, I didn't expect that to work," Ryohei admits honestly after a moment, and laughs in amazement.
Hibari clenches his teeth in irritation (perhaps embarrassment too) and lingers a little longer, trying to get the air back into his lungs and remain calm despite the infuriating idiot chuckling beneath him.
Ryohei feels him tense though, and reaches out to pat his ankle in what is supposed to be a placating manner. "So, can we call it draw for today, rival?"
Hibari pulls his knee back and kicks Ryohei in the face—fast as lightning.
Ryohei's nose bleeds, but all he does is grin in admiration and admit defeat after all. "Man, that was a good kick."
Hibari—still lying on top of him and breathless—simply listens to the other boy's awe-filled effusions in silence and doesn't know what to think.
"I don't believe you," he says after a moment—when he can talk again—and sits up, his full weight perched on Ryohei's torso so he can look down—very slightly awed himself—at Sasagawa. He doesn't mean it as a compliment at all.
He's greeted with a lopsided smile when it's taken as one anyway. "Rivals are supposed to respect each other, after all," Ryohei tells him matter-of-factly, while blood runs down his nose and lips and the curve of his chin, dripping down onto the front of his shirt.
Hibari holds back the urge to grab him by the throat and shake some sense into him, because none of that had any logic to it at all. Instead (i.e. against his better judgment), he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his fine linen handkerchief, and shoves it up against Ryohei's nose—hard.
And then, when he looks at the blond idiot lying there with a wadded up handkerchief pressed to his face, he takes a breath and feels his shoulders slump in defeat, because that's too pitiful a state to look at and still want to fight. "I win for today," he acknowledges quietly, and then stands, straightens his clothes.
Ryohei looks up at him and grins. "But tomorrow I'm gonna win for sure!" he promises, voice slightly muffled by the cloth covering his nose and mouth.
Hibari almost—almost—laughs at that, for the sheer ridiculousness of it all. "Tomorrow I'm going to break your arm," he says despite his better judgment, his eyes glinting with promise. And then he turns to leave, off to finish his lunchtime rounds without a backwards glance.
Ryohei follows him anyway.
END