Here I am digging my own grave by starting yet another multi-chaptered fic. You all must hate me now. Haha. KHR! makes me do things I'm not proud of. And I'm kinda obsessing over the girls (Haru, Kyoko, Chrome) because we haven't seen them for a while and I miss them, okay? Also, it's been a while since I've dabbled in GokuHaru and the pairing deserves more love.

Inspired by a prolonged stay in Starbucks. The coffee fumes overwhelmed me. Or something.

Title: Coffee Stains
Characters/ Pairings: Gokudera Hayato, Miura Haru
Rating: T for Gokudera's mouth
Warnings: Coarse language, OOC-ness because Gokudera's actually nice in here.
Summary: In which they bond over horrible instant coffee.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I am but a poor Biology major.

Chapter 1
Instant Coffee

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When Haru calls Gokudera at two in the morning on a whim, she is fully expecting the usual tirade of profanities she knows that the boy's mouth is capable of. She even distances her phone a scant centimeters away from her ear so as to not receive the full brunt of the Italian's enraged voice. What she does not expect is Gokudera hanging up on her about three seconds into the call, and turning up a minute later in front of her dorm room, completely disheveled, and clad only in a hastily thrown on shirt and a pair of bright red boxers.

"Miura, what's wrong? What happened? Are you hurt?" Gokudera asks her quickly; his green eyes restlessly looking around and examining Haru from head to toe, checking the girl for any injuries. She notices belatedly that he has Uri out and there are sticks of dynamite clutched tightly in his hands.

Bakadera thought that she was in trouble.

"Oi, Miura! What's wrong?"

Haru sighs. "Nothing's wrong, Bakadera."

The Italian looks at her as if she's grown another head. "What do you mean there's nothing wrong?" He asks her incredulously, his eyes narrowing and then widening in some sort of epiphany. "Are they threatening you to keep quiet?" Gokudera asks conspiratorially, and Haru shakes her head exasperatedly.

"Nothing's wrong," she repeats, leaning against the doorframe. "Haru called you because Haru wanted someone to talk to." The girl confesses, suddenly feeling lethargic. Calling Gokudera at two in the morning might not have been a great idea after all.

"You—what the fuck?" Gokudera sputters indignantly. "You're saying that you fucking called me at two in the fucking morning because you wanted someone to fucking talk to?"

Suddenly thankful that her dorm room was in an almost isolated corner of the building, Haru nods slowly. And Gokudera surprises her once again when he merely sighs and extinguishes his flame after his hysterical outburst. She's not quite sure as to what made her notice it, but for the first time, Haru sees how tired the silver-haired boy is. There are dark rings under Gokudera's eyes, his skin had an unhealthy pallor to it, and his cheeks had hollowed out since the last time she's seen him, making her wonder if he is even eating properly.

Knowing Gokudera, he probably wasn't.

"Tch, I'm going home. I still have a fucking thesis to complete." Gokudera mutters under his breath, turning around to head home. "Come on, Uri." He calls out to the small cat that had apparently entered Haru's room while they were talking; she looks over to see Uri lounging comfortably on her sofa and looking at its master with baleful eyes. "Damnit Uri, we're going home!"

Uri snootily turned away from Gokudera with a soft meow.

As a frustrated frown made its presence known on Gokudera's face, Haru finds herself blurting out an invitation before she has time to think it over. "Why don't you just stay for a while, Bakadera?"

"The hell would I do that?"

"Because Uri-chan looks tired!" The brown-haired girl huffs, and because you could do with some rest, she mentally adds.

Gokudera snorts and regards her with a raised eyebrow. She stares resolutely back, cheeks puffed up in a challenge. "Whatever." Which probably means, Sure, I'll stay, thanks for offering, in Bakadera-speak, because the Italian pushes past her and into her room without another word.

"Do you want anything to drink, Bakadera?" She asks after she locks the door, turning around to see the boy standing awkwardly next to her sofa, glaring daggers at Uri. "You can sit down, y'know." Haru quips when Gokudera happens to look up at her.

"I was being polite!" And with that, he unceremoniously plops himself down on the sofa, earning an indignant meow from Uri. Gokudera hisses at his pet in reply before turning his attention to Haru. "Do you have coffee?"

"Um, the instant kind." She says lamely, because she has never been one to drink coffee and only keeps some around because all night study sessions require her to.

A disgusted sneer makes its way to Gokudera's lips at the mention of instant coffee and he stops himself before he can say anything that would most likely get him thrown out of Haru's couch; which was insanely soft, by the way. "Fine," he finally musters out, leaning further into the comfortable depths of the neon green sofa and feeling absolutely fatigued.

Gods, how many days has it been since he'd actually slept?

Too long, apparently, because the silver-haired Italian feels his eyelids drooping in sleepiness. For a short moment, he considers just going to sleep right then and there on Haru's inhumanely soft couch, but then decides against it; the last thing he needed was Haru whining that he'd fallen asleep on her or something equally stupid that he can't even bother to think of right now.

So Gokudera forces his eyes open, blinking blearily, only to come face to face with a concerned-looking Haru.

"You shouldn't have come if you were so tired, y'know," the brown-haired girl says, setting down a mug in front of him on the low table and sitting down next to him.

He snorts in response, leaning over to grab the mug. "Tch, what and have you whine at me tomorrow for not being nice and conducive to your needs?" Gokudera sneers before gulping down the steaming hot liquid and wincing at the bland taste. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

She mumbles incoherently in response, earning her a whack on the head from the Italian.

"I don't speak gibberish, speak clearly."

"Haru heard that Tsuna-san…" the brown-haired girl trails off, her too-bright eyes filling with tears and Gokudera does the first thing that came to mind. He shoves Haru by the shoulders. Hard.

"Don't cry, idiot."

The girl turns to him angrily. "Haru wasn't going to cry, Bakadera!" She yells, throwing a pillow at him. "And that hurt!"

"Yeah, yeah. So what about the Tenth?"

"Haru…Haru heard about Tsuna-san and Kyoko-chan." Haru finally says, pulling her legs up and hugging her knees to her chest; feeling ridiculously vulnerable and hopeless and all shades of pathetic. She can't believe she's called Gokudera over for this.

The silver-haired Italian's not really surprised. In fact, he's expected something like this the moment he found out that the Tenth has finally confessed to Sasagawa's sister. Perhaps the knowledge that Miura Haru was going to be nonsensically upset over it was what hindered him to be truly happy for them.

Contrary to popular belief, Gokudera Hayato's not entirely insensitive.

And he would never admit it but Haru's sorta grown on him; to the point that her stupid 'hahi' chirps don't even grate on his nerves anymore.

He places his hand on top of Haru's head, slightly ruffling the girl's hair before slightly nudging her to lean on his shoulder. "You should be happy for them," Gokudera says almost inaudibly, burrowing deeper into the nest of pillows on Haru's couch. It's the best thing he can come up with, and perhaps the best thing he can say to the girl.

Haru glares at him. "Haru is happy for them! But it's just that Haru is…Haru…" she mutters, and Gokudera slightly regrets having Haru lean on his shoulder because he has no idea what expression the idiot has on right now. "It's just that…Haru's a bit—" She falters, feeling tears well up in her eyes.

"I'm happy for them, I really am. I've always known that they'll end up together. I—I just didn't expect it to hurt so much. This feeling of being alone—not being part of something…it hurts. I'm afraid that I'm not part of the family anymore because I can't be Tsuna-san's mafia wife, and I don't want that to happen. I love you guys so much and I—"

Her lips quivered and Gokudera regards her blankly for a moment before sighing long-sufferingly. He felt for a pillow and nonchalantly hits Haru on the face with it.

"What the hell, Bakadera? You're such a—"

"You are an idiot." The Italian leans in close so that their foreheads are touching and Haru stops whatever she was going to say and just stares. Because she's always thought that Gokudera was pretty. And well, wow, he had long eyelashes too. "Listen here, Miura," the Storm Guardian starts, green eyes boring into Haru's brown ones and needless to say she's mesmerized.

"You're part of the Vongola whether you like it or not; you're freaking family." He continues, and Haru finds herself letting her tears fall for the first time since she's found out about Tsuna and Kyoko. "And get it into that thick skull of yours that I wouldn't rush to anyone's dorm room at two in the fucking morning in just my boxers if I didn't deem them important."

Haru sniffs, burying her head on the crook of Gokudera's head. There's a torrid blush gracing her cheeks and a mega-watt smile on her lips. "That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard you say, Bakadera." She says, wrapping her arms around the boy's waist and just reveling in his warmth.

Gokudera just scoffs and lets Haru hug him for a full minute before pushing her away with a sneer.

He can't have her thinking that he liked her, now could he?

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They end up talking about random things over a cup of horrible instant coffee. They both forget that they have classes tomorrow morning.

Gokudera ends up sleeping on Haru's couch.

She exacts payment in the form of taking copious amounts of picture of the Italian while he was fast asleep.

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It becomes some sort of habit for the both of them; a sort of respite from their hectic lives. Somewhere along the line, Gokudera has his own coffee maker installed in Haru's kitchen and a can of imported Italian coffee kept safely in her cupboards because he hated the instant ones Haru had.

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tbc

A/N: This will consist of four chapters at the most because, ugh, I have to work on other fics. And I'm doing this to release pent up energy and stuff.

Eurgh. Just to be clear, they're in uni. Yeaaah.

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