Notes: silly fluff based on chapter 188, because Yamamoto is ridiculously cute. The Vongola 77 book says that the mentioned magazine is Gokudera's favourite; I love abusing that bit of information.

A few minutes after Baishana had been defeated and they'd gone back into the vents to carry on with the raid, Gokudera couldn't hold it in anymore. "So how exactly did you think the kangaroo was going to talk to you?"

Yamamoto laughed. "Well, what do you think?" he said, like it was obvious.

"I think it's a kangaroo! It's not able to talk!"

"But Kangaryuu's a box animal," said Yamamoto, in the tones of someone being extraordinarily reasonable. (He took this tone often around Gokudera.) "She's on fire all the time, and she shoots out those cool gloves and boots." He stopped crawling to shoot two sharp punches at the air to illustrate, and probably would have bounced around on the balls of his feet if he had space. "Who's to say that she wouldn't be able to speak?"

"It's a KANGAROO!" Gokudera said, as if this was defence against everything (though he was turning a fierce red due to a suspicion that in this case, it wasn't. He refused to give ground.). "Even if it could talk, only an idiot would expect it to!"

"I can't believe you said that!" Yamamoto looked over his shoulder to give Gokudera a look of exaggerated surprise. "Haven't you seen weirder things in that magazine of yours?"

Gokudera ground his teeth. He suspected he would always regret the day he'd taken the monthly magazine The Wonders and Mysteries of the World to school to read during class. (The Tenth, appropriately, had been struck dumb in amazement at its contents; Yamamoto had merely laughed a lot and shown that he was dumb.) "Those are well-researched, documented cases of paranormal phenomena!" Gokudera shot back. "This is some crazy scientist's excuse for a weapon that he probably thought up while watching reruns of Animal Planet!"

"Shut up, the pair of you," Ryohei said from ahead. His severe tone contrasted strongly with their memories of his young persona; as an adult he gave the command with authority, and the boys followed it.

"Do you think the Millefiore might have heard us?" Yamamoto asked in a low voice with a trace of worry.

"Probably not. But 'Garyuu might have." Ryohei shifted Lal Mirch minutely where she lay over his back so he could touch the pocket where he'd stored the box. "It could've hurt her feelings."

"Oh," said Yamamoto in surprise, and then raised his voice a little to call out, "Sorry, Kangaryuu. We didn't mean anything bad."

Ryohei gave him a quick smile as he shouldered Lal Mirch back into a more comfortable position.

"A kangaroo," Gokudera muttered, and then gave himself up as outnumbered. He'd be downright ecstatic when Lal Mirch woke up.