A/N: Old title used to be "It's Actually Not That Bad" but in light of recent events (the American Election namely, please be safe everyone ohmygod) I am changing it to "Let Me Explain"

Sorry for disappearing for so long; this has been in my drafts since May... my writing is getting more choppy I'm so sorry

"Sawada Chou, what on earth is this?!"

The sound of a single hand thundering down upon her desk is enough to silence the classroom. Beneath her teacher's aged and vein-tinged hands is a crumpled sheet of paper that is barely legible beyond each calculated wrinkle. The man's labored breaths increase by the second, steadily becoming more and more angry by something she couldn't even see.

It was an occurrence that made her sigh internally. A tired expression cut across her face, calmly withdrawing back into her space and glancing at the career survey she was made to turn in only just recently.

She didn't reply, didn't move, didn't react.

Her teacher continued to scream in anger, growing more and more red-faced. Shouting profanities and raising his hand. Yeseul followed the momentum, shooting sideways with every explosive shove as the man accused her of not taking her education seriously. Of making a joke out of the staff. Of being every sort of criminal and bum like her parents.

"You'll never amount to anything, Sawada." Were the words shouted repeatedly at her, each slap becoming more and more abrasive. "You have no respect for your elders, you constantly make trouble to those around you, and you treat everything like it's a game. You're a nuisance to society- people like you are destined for prison."

Not one muscle twitched in the heavy silence that followed the outburst. Looks were shot across the classroom. Yeseul had turned her glare downwards, on the workbook laying scattered on the ground with the rest of her things. If she had looked up, she would've seen the Class President's fists clench turn stark white. Would've seen all the sympathetic looks. Would've committed to memory all the faces that were willing to take a stand.

Instead, she kept it in and wondered idly about her university applications abroad.

Dr. Rim Yeseul is, no doubt, one of the most well-known names within the medical community.

Having written numerous medical journals and patented more than one major disease treatment, it is easy to say that her face is one well known among the newspaper columns of her hometown.

Tsuna knows this and his classmates know this.

The case of Nezu Dohachiro is one such example of Yeseul's influence stretching beyond borders.

Tsuna remembers watching the whole proceeding live.

The original deal, to his knowledge, was that the principal was only going to fire the middle school science teacher for lying on his transcripts. It was going to be a quiet event that no one outside the school community would know about. One that was easy to throw under the carpet later.

That all changed with one phone call.

Before he knew it, Nezu was caught in a media storm and a legal battle that would soon ultimately destroy his career thereafter.

Honestly, Tsuna thought it was Reborn's doing at first.

"If this is some weird way of asserting your dominance over my life- it's working but it can stop," Tsuna had said unimpressed to the hitman, staring intently at the TV screen as his former teacher was marched down the court room. There was a part of him that felt bad for the middle aged man. But a larger part rejoiced at the idea that he finally was getting what he deserved.

On screen, the judge ordered the court to silence. Idly, Tsuna noted that Reborn still had yet to reply to his lighthearted accusation.

If he'd been more sitting in a more advantageous position, then the teenager would've easily caught the interested glint in his beady eyes.

Instead, a bob of hair caught his attention and he found his attention focused solely on the woman sitting smugly in the litigation.

He was lucky that the newspaper had stopped writing her down as 'Dr. Sawada Chou née Rim Yeseul' after her first publication because there was no easy way to explain away why the Hearing suddenly became more personal to the teenager. Reborn would've taken the whole "my older sister took my teacher to court and thoroughly destroyed three generations of his bloodline" in a whole new direction that would've put to shame her old high school rumors.

In fact, those rumors had nothing on the way she was living nowadays.

If her life really was what the newspaper were making it out to be then there was no way he was going to let Reborn's chaos make it worst.

Normal was barely even a word he could use to describe life in Namimori nowadays.

She didn't need more crazy to add to her encyclopedia of weirdness.

Not after finally making a name for herself separate from the town that took it away.

Rim Yeseul's first major breakthrough into the medical world is, by all means, unconventional and very illegal.

At least to a sense.

Hibari Ryo's family is illusive at best. In a more calmed manner, she can easily claim that of every definition- the Hibari siblings were Yakuza Royalty.

'Were' being the operative word.

She doesn't exactly know how the empire fell or why the two were kept alive to inherit the remnants of their parent's legacy but if there was one thing she was sure of, it was that the Hibari clan had a lot of subordinates that were still loyal to their young masters.

Albeit, critically injured subordinates.

Strangely enough, as a young intern doctor returning to her hometown for a short respite, her first client is none other than Kusakabe Tetsuya- the best friend of Ryo's reluctant-to-just-say-so's younger brother.

The boys tell her that they were caught up in a fight with the older kids. The boy's father tells her that there was no time to head to the hospital. Ryo tells her about oaths and loyalty and family.

The bullet she removes from the side of Tetsuya's chest tells a different story but the opportunity that presents itself the next day easily keeps her from remembering the specifics of her first illegal surgery.

Looking back, she wonders if that was Hibari's plan from the start.

In her adult years, many can still claim that the woman still wears many of her teenaged quirks.

Though not as scandalous as before, she still manages to make an event out of every toss and turn that is thrown her way. Everything becomes a story when she is involved. Not one second is wasted in agony in her presence.

Tsuna wants to believe it. He really does but it's events like these that makes him think otherwise.

If anything, her adult life was even more scandalous now that she's established herself.

In her second random encounter with Tsuna, she manages to not just cause one misunderstanding but also inspires early balding all in two minutes.

It's amazing how it all starts in an elevator with the same company as the first time.

He is definitely not going to live long.

While he can throw his half-sister's weirdness under the bus for his oncoming heart attack; he knew enough of the company she kept around that most of the eccentricities that came around the Sawada Chou image were what made Sawada Chou so eccentric in the first place.

Professionally he can see why she was so quick to shed that name.

Currently, he was wondering what she did this time.

The first thing she does is shove a phone into his hands.

(The first sign of misunderstanding is the binary countdown and the list of names open for all the world to see.)

Later, she'll tell him she was playing Assasin. Presently, it looked like she just crawled through a dusty heating vent.

She doesn't even talk as much as heaving in huge gulps of air that would make cigarette commercials look appealing. He's almost tempted to go get treated for secondhand smoke just witnessing it.

"Are you busy?" is what he gleans. This time there's no one screaming after her when the elevator doors close. It takes two floors to actually understand what she wheezed out.

Tsuna shakes his head.

Yeseul swipes at the sweat running down her forehead, crumbling to the ground in an image of giant sweat bucket. He can only stare in bewilderment wondering how she decided where Dr. Rim ended and where Yeseul-Chou began.

This time he didn't pay attention to everyone else. It was kind of hard to anyways- what with the asphyxiating woman who was supposed to be a famous doctor sweating like a twelve-year-old boy in gym class in front of him.

The phone in his hands vibrates once, the countdown stops only to be replaced with a name and he's about to read out loud when she says

"Don't tell anyone you saw me. I've killed half the people and hiding in the elevator is my only reprieve."

The door opens, Tsuna leans over to close it. No one protests.

"Are... are you coming home for dinner?" he asks uncertainly despite himself.

This time, she shakes her head and mutters something about being taken out.

He takes that as with friends and not in terms of murder.

The gun that she hauled in fumbles to the ground. A large nNerf cannon that he remembers having painted black with her discount paints once upon a time.

That's the second misunderstanding- because he knows it's supposed to be Nerf gun. But he's been around Reborn enough to know his guns.

But if being tutored by the World's Greatest Hitman taught him anything- it was being able to spot out an actual loaded rifle when he saw one.

The fact that she also had a dried smear across her cheek that could've been warpaint but could've also been real blood didn't help.

Yeseul catches his worried gaze and lets out a Smoker's hack. Laughter she'd tell him later, I was laughing, she'd be sure to say but right now what leaves her mouth isn't that much comforting his concerns for her sanity, "scuffle with the dude I just killed."

She even gives him a thumbs up, Tsuna isn't even sure if he can look even more aghast.

Then the door opens once again.

Hibari Ryo stands before the doors looking like God has graced the Earth just to hand out water bottles.

He doesn't even know what the transformation is- just that she's chucking down gallons of water and The Landgod of Namimori Precinct now has her phone and the gun in his possession.

They moved like blurs.

Tsuna blanks out for the rest of the encounter.

It's not until Dino mentions it later does he realize he wasn't reliving another one of her high school rumors.

In truth, Tsuna knows that Rim Yeseul and Sawada Chou were like two sides of a coin no matter how many times she tried to protest it.

Sawada Chou symbolized the fragile part of her that always was trampled on.

Rim Yeseul is influential and powerful in her own right.

Authority bows to her. Dr. Rim is a title she wears like a crown. She is the acme of knowledge. In the face of adversity, she is matured and calm and calculative.

She is the scalpel. She is the drill. The knife. The gloves. The sterility of an operating room. The steel of the table. She is the book teaching a new generation secrets she had to learn by herself. She is the knowledge that is constantly growing under the Sky.

Her face is pasted in every medical journal. Her name a credit to every paper. Her essence an event of its own wherever she goes.

The only reply Tsuna gets to the whole Nezu case is a single peace sign emoticon.

He falls asleep thinking of how she is only twenty-four and how the world treats her like war hero turned sage. A martyr to a profession riddled with political woes and ethical mishaps.

He wonders about the girl that had grew up too quickly and the woman she became.

a/n: Ok so basically before anything else, I'm not going to pretend school life back then was perfect. Cause it wasn't. The whole thing with Nezu basically stems from a thought that 'hey if a female teacher can lose her job over her past career as an underwear model then a male teacher can lose his over fraud' and a documentary I was watching at the time I think. If Yeseul was powerless as a child then of course, she'd jump at the chance to get back at her childhood tormentor. And who wouldn't defend their siblings if they had the power to, lets be real.