Sorry it's so late, but as I said, I had a block, and then I went and lost my thumb drive after I did this… Hopefully this'll be easier when school reopens (fare thee well, dear holidays).

Many thanks to MikhailAlaude and racooncity for your ideas and help, for which I am eternally grateful. -bows-

"Kyoko…"

"Yes, Hana?" Sasagawa Kyoko looked up from her work to face her best friend.

"What's with that weird depressing aura over there?" Hana stared pointedly at the dark haze hovering around Gokudera, who had his head down and appeared to be muttering to himself.

"Huh? I don't know, he's been like that ever since he came into class." It had happened before, she remembered, but he seemed to recover in good time.

"I wonder what's gotten into him. Do you think he needs help or something? This isn't the first time we've seen him like that." Hana queried.

Smiling, she reassured the skeptical girl, "I'm sure he'll get over it. Like you said, this isn't the first time, so it's probably not unusual for him."

"Ah, you're probably right. Come on, didn't you say you had to get something from your locker?" she sighed.

"Oh, yes! Thanks for reminding me." Kyoko got up and, together, headed out of the classroom.

"Hey, Reborn." Gokudera started.

"Yes?" They were in their usual 'hideout'- Tsuna's room. Yamamoto was gone for a toilet break and Tsuna himself had gone down to fetch snacks for them.

Gokudera, sensing an opportunity to dig a little deeper in a particular disturbing development, did as so.

"Do- do you know anything about…the…" He realized that while he had been on the lookout for a chance to ask questions, he hadn't thought about how he was going to go about doing it.

"What? If you're going to ask a question, do it properly." Reborn stated, already knowing what was coming next.

"Y-yeah…" He took in a large breath, let it out, and began again. "Do you know how that… mark on the Tenth's collarbone area came about?"

Being (as he so strongly believed), said Tenth's right-hand man, he felt upset at the fact that he knew nothing about what had happened, but also at himself because he was not as trusting of Tsuna as he wanted to be.

"You're smart, Gokudera, you ought to have figured it out. If you haven't then you should have." Came the reply.

"The snacks are here," Tsuna announced, re-entering the room. "Yamamoto's not back yet?"

"Did someone say my name?" Yamamoto stuck his head around the door frame.

"Yeah, I was just wondering whether you were back from the toilet yet. I got the snacks," he added.

"You did? Great, I was starving!" Yamamoto laughed, sitting down with the two of his fellow guardians.

"Don't treat the Tenth as if he was your personal maid, yakyu-baka!" Gokudera jumped up, making the customary large amount of noise in the usual indignant fashion.

"Kimi wa dare da? Boku wa Lambo-" Lambo danced in through the door standing ajar, with I-Pin chasing after him.

"Lambo! Don't go in there!" she called out, but, not surprisingly, the Lightning guardian paid her no heed.

"Ooh! Cake!" Lambo exclaimed, diving for the table. "Gyahahaha! This is all mine!" He crooned, carrying off the plate of kasutera.

"Lambo! That's not yours! It's for the guests! Put it back!" I-Pin reprimanded him, snatching back the plate, from which he was already stuffing his face with the sponge cake.

"Hey! That's Lambo-san's, give it back!" At this point, he noticed a small jar filled with assorted sweets sitting on a bookshelf and steered towards it instead.

Having successfully obtained the jar as well as toppling the over all the books, he hid it in his hair and ran off.

Gokudera had by now noticed the noisy little creature (who wouldn't have?) and picked it/him up by his hair, demanding that the Tenth's candy jar be returned, completely forgetting, for the moment, about the issue that had been bothering him so far throughout the day.

Amidst the ruckus, no one had seen the smirk on Reborn's face as he muttered to himself, "I never expected him to move so fast."

"Oi, Tsuna." Reborn called down his perch on the edge of his from his hammock.

"What, Reborn?" Tsuna sighed, exhausted from having dealt with Lambo on a serious sugar high. In the end, he had gotten fed up, leaving the cow-spring-imitation bouncing around and laughing crazily in an eerie voice in the guest bedroom (Lambo was the one laughing, not Tsuna).

"Wait a minute, how are you sitting on the edge of a hammock? Those things are about as stable as a two-legged horse on heroin."

"Never mind how I do it, what's that thing on your neck?"

Tsuna repeated his earlier performance of his impression of a tomato while displaying how to trip over your words.

"It's- err, ahm… you see, I- uh…"He choked out, frantically searching for an explanation not involving the truth.

In any case, it was a difficult task, for one couldn't exactly walk into a wall or fall neck-first, could they?

"I… I fell… into a pond! And… and hit the edge of the pond as I went in! Yeah! Yeah, that's it!" Tsuna exclaimed, having found an answer, although he knew it was too much to expect Reborn to believe him.

"Oh, really? When was this?" Reborn queried.

"Argh!" One of his hands found its way into his hair, and he replied, "You probably already know about this, so why are you asking me? I don't want to talk about it!

"Because, as a boss, you have to inform your subordinates about current affairs they don't know of, or else they will be left in the dark. I won't always be here to prompt you and guess what you're playing at." Reborn's expression had settled into a more serious tone.

"Reborn…"

"Now, are you going to tell me or not?"

"I- uh…" Tsuna squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force himself to divulge the goings-on of that day. "You see… I'm sorry, I just can't!" He flopped back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. How could he possibly tell Reborn about what Hibari had done?

There was a small smile on Reborn's as he clarified, "Are you sure?"

Tsuna thought that, perhaps, just for once, he was going to be let off easy. Of course, since his gaze was fixated on the divider between his room and the roof tiles, he hadn't noticed the look on his tutor's face.

"Yeah…" he sighed.

Falling back into his hammock, he stated, "Okay, then. Tomorrow, gather all your guardians after school. We're going to play a game." With that, he fell asleep.

"Huh? What? Reborn!" Tsuna shot up straight, before noticing that the Arcobaleno had slipped off into La-la Land yet again.

He always does that… Why do I have this horrible feeling that something highly embarrassing is going to happen tomorrow?

Casting that thought out of his mind, he changed into his pajamas and clambered into bed.

If you review… I'll love you? –hopeful gaze-