—

thirty-one—itch.

—

It starts just as impulsively as she likes to think.

There's the boy—the adorably stupid, no-good boy that makes smiles tread for miles and eyes roll skyward at even the slightest of touches or whispers—and the girl—obviously, in order for this to work, there has to be two. There's a Point A and a Point B—the path that leads to where she would like to end up but he's resisting the temptation to follow her—a start and a finish. No passing Go.

She'll have to break him first.

.

She's going about this all wrong.

A thought—it comes while she's in the shower, running her washcloth over her curves and reveling in the fact that, yes, he's on the other side of the thin, practically see-through curtain, and second, it's three in the morning and they still have three or four hours to kill before reality wakes up to kick them both upside the asses. Namely, summer jobs. Except Tsunayoshi's is more of a daring adventure more than the minimum wage boutique retail sort. She has to admit, she's rather jealous. Jealous doesn't even cover it—he gets to play knight in shining armor for girls all around the world while she's stuck rotting away in a boutique on market street when she should be rocking the beach, like every other normal teenager her age.

Like beauty queen Kyouko, but hey. To each their own, right?

"I leave in thirty minutes." Around the curtain. Between fingers. Shut eyes. Of course. Leave it to Tsunayoshi's full-time job to screw everything over. She honestly wonders how Kyouko can do it with Mukuro. And how Adelheid can do it with Hibari. Then again, Adelheid's a Guardian too—for another family, but a closely allied one, practically for their sakes. He shifts. Shoves a hand into his pocket. "I'm sorry, Haru."

She wonders if she should cup some water and throw it at him in frustration. How many times has she heard him say the word sorry in the past week? She counts on her fingers, twice, three times, finally giving up once she reaches thirty, then blows hot air out of her mouth as she lathers her hair up again. "Honestly, Tsuna-san, you leave so often I'm used to it by now. You come and go. That's your job. It's fine. I'll take Yamamoto out for lunch tomorrow before his game or something."

Second most frequently stated phrase goes to: "This isn't that kind of trip."

"Of course it's not," Haru snorts, dryly, wryly, tiredly, exasperatedly, "because you're in the Mafia and practically everyone else I know is in cahoots with you and your full time job."

There's silence for a few moments. Long enough for her to finish shampooing, washing her face, putting in conditioner. She's just about to shut off the water when the curtain pulls back and a small, hesitant expression pokes out from behind thin fingers. He's looking at her, but at this point, she's too frustrated to care whether or not he likes what he sees.

He has the nerve to smile. Cautiously. "Courtesy of Reborn?"

"Naturally."

.

It's like the punch line to a bad joke.

She isn't certain whether or not she should demand compensation for this fiasco of an evening, or if she should shove her extremely expensive boot up his ass for dragging her to the park while he knew full damn well that it was going to rain. She knows he's awkward, clueless even. But a date in the rain? Seriously? Only if there's kissing involved, idiot. Fat chance of that—he hasn't kissed her even once. Seen her naked in the shower a bunch of times, but not one little kiss.

She's sure that even Hibari's better than that.

She's wringing out her hair just inside her front door and cursing his name under her breath for screwing up her sea-salted waves and kitten eyes, when he wrenches her up by her jacket collar and pushes his lips to hers—hard. Deep. Fast. Wet. It's too brief to fully justify the ungodly two seconds it takes, but instead of complaining and berating him for his backing off so soon, she's just shocked he's actually made a move.

Something other than texting her with the question mark capped suggestions of walks in the park, or taking Lambo to the amusement park, or her personal favorite: hanging out at his place, which normally includes intrusions from Reborn (she swears he's more like the spawn of Xanxus's loins than a lethal assassin) and frequent visits to the world ten years later where—naturally—all hell's breaking loose.

So. When her mind recovers enough to process the fact that Sawada Tsunayoshi just kissed her somewhere other than her cheek or someplace obscure like her elbow, she takes his face in her hands and pulls his lips back to hers, keeping him still—her fingers have got a chokehold on the unfortunate bunches of auburn that frames his eyes and temples. He doesn't resist her, but he doesn't respond to her as forcefully as she hoped he would, but, then again, this is Sawada Tsunayoshi. Clueless, but noble and handsomest when flustered.

She pushes him back so that they're nose to nose. "Honestly, Tsuna-san, what were you afraid of?"

He blinks. Raises his eyebrows. Playing smartass—playing the Percy Jackson act, and looking hot while doing it. "I was waiting for you."

Okay. So not Percy Jackson—she's running out of fictional characters to liken his puppy dog eyes to. Or pleading seal eyes. Something cute. She decides to pull an Annabeth: "Waiting for me to do what?"

"Well…"

"I thought so," she says, righting his clothes and clapping her frozen hands together as if by doing so, the pins and needles hiding under her skin will somehow pop out and drop to the floor. She tosses her damp hair, sighs, and pulls her shoes off with her fingers. She catches him watching her. "What?"

"What time are you planning on going to sleep tonight?"

She curves a corner of her lip up—she likes where this is going. "After my show, why?"

Now he's smiling. Grinning like the lovable goofball she knows he is. Adorably stupid, impossibly boyish, so utterly clueless that he wouldn't be her Sawada Tsunayoshi without at least a drop of innocence. No. Obtuseness is more like it. And now that she's looking at it, that's not a smile. That's a smirk. Tsunayoshi smirking is not something she's used to.

She really likes where this is going.

"Mind staying up a little later?"

She pushes herself up onto her tip toes and leans her face close to his ear. Lowering her voice just so that he has to tilt onto her lips, she whispers, "I wouldn't mind pulling an all-nighter."

He shivers.

That's it, Tsunayoshi. Pick up on that innuendo. Process it. Start combusting. Aim. Fire—

"I don't have anything to do tomorrow."

Oh for fuck's sake. "I'm taking a shower."

Did she just say that? In that tone? She almost flinches at her voice—it's never sounded so low, throaty, demanding. She's never felt this starved, or disappointed, or even frustrated, really. She's been mad before. She's been furious before too. But frustrated? She's sure that all of those words mean completely different things. This isn't mad. This isn't furious. This is frustration. This is stupid Sawada Tsunayoshi being thick in the head and clueless and obtuse and oblivious and—

"I'll come with you."

She turns from the steps on the staircase, and lifts one eyebrow as if to say, oh, really? just to play guard dog on the other side of the curtain? and turns back up the stairs as if he hadn't spoken, before he catches her wrist in his hand. If there's one thing he's good at amongst all his faults, he at least has the decency to read her body language to be able to tell the difference from real anger and exasperation. But this time, it's a mixture of both. Breaking him seems impossible now, even if she were to strip down to practically nothing.

Then his voice is in her ear, low, hot, husky, and her mind's blank as his voice sinks deeper, and deeper, and somehow, she's not sure how she ends up in the shower with his arms crushing her against the wall, but she sure as hell doesn't mind being there. Point A to Point B. No side trips—maybe for soap and Scrubby Bubbles.

And for the record, he doesn't break first.

She tears at the seams.

.

end.

notes that you might want to take note of: Due to the fact that a.) I was on hiatus for a long, long time, and b.) I'm going to college in August, and c.) my drabbles for this are getting dirtier and dirtier, the following are going to be happening: I'm going to be writing and posting more often once I get Microsoft Word on my new laptop. I'm also going to try to finish this drabble collection before I go to college or the drabbles are going to become far and few between due to lack of time or they're gonna get shorter. Lastly, this drabble collection is now M-rated. Better to be safe than sorry.

also important: In case everyone forgot, I still do not own anything in this drabble collection. Thank you, and please let me know what you think.