Sasagawa Masaru

Outside the main building of the Vongola Compound, in the aisles of the orchard, the sun was shining bright as Haruhi began her baseball boot camp for her friend and godfather. Gokudera seemed a mite miffed at the fact he was running around on the grass in a suit, but that was no concern of Haruhi’s. She happily ran around without taking notice to her increasingly filthy dress or that that Kiyohiko in the outfield was far from being good at throwing the ball and was more or less afraid of it. Any way Gokudera looked at it… this was just the stupid baseball brat weaseling in batting practice.

“Go long, Yohi-kun!” Haruhi yelled as Gokudera threw another ball at her. She had been hitting them perfectly straight and all right on target so far, so the young boy decided it was best to run as instructed.

KERRRAK

The ball went zooming across the orchard, soaring high in the sky. Gokudera had to arch his neck to watch it. A strong wind began to blow, forcing the ball off-target and off into another aisle.

“Oh, man!” Haruhi sighed. “I knew I should’ve been practicing more!”

Practicing more? The way Gokudera saw it, she hit the balls further and more accurate than half of the adults in Japan. It had to be Takeshi’s genes.

“Ow!” shouted a voice once the baseball finally disappeared into the trees. Haruhi, Kiyohiko and Haruhi rushed through the orchard to find whoever it was that they accidentally hit.

Lying in the grass with a glazed-over expression on his face was the Sun Guardian’s son Masaru.

“Oh, hi there Goku-oji!” the boy said. “All of a sudden, I have an extreme headache!”

“Are you alright Masaru-nii?” Kiyohiko asked, tears beginning to well in his eyes for his elder cousin. Haruhi, however, did not look as distressed as the Eleventh.

“He’s fine. I’ve been hit worse,” she said, looking at the lump on Masaru’s head. “Masaru-kun’s tougher than this.”

That explains a lot about both of them, Gokudera sighed. “Alright kids, time to go inside.”

“…but it’s not dinner time yet!” Haruhi protested. “I wanna play more baseball!”

“You’re playing baseball? I wanna play too!” Masaru said, immediately perking up.

“Then let’s go!” Haruhi smiled. Masaru jumped to his feet, swayed a little bit out of dizziness, and then followed Haruhi back to where she had left the mitts and bat.

“Is Masaru-nii going to be alright, Gokudera-san?” Kiyohiko whimpered, tugging onto Gokudera’s pant leg. “That looked like a bad bump!”

“If he’s anything like his father, which I know he is, then he’ll be fine,” Gokudera assured. “Now go play with them.”

“Okay…” Kiyohiko said, trying his best to smile. Gokudera followed the Eleventh back to where Haruhi and Masaru were already playing. The three were now running about and laughing, having abandoned baseball temporarily for tag.

“You’ll never catch me!” Masaru jeered. “I can run extremely fast you know!”

“We’ll see about that!” Haruhi laughed. Kiyohiko tried to keep up, but was not able to run very far without stopping to catch his breath.

Figuring he had nothing else better to do, Gokudera sat down underneath a nearby tree and lit a cigarette. Trying to go back to the Compound would be useless, as one of the children would spot him and then he would probably have to fight off both Haruhi and Masaru (Kiyohiko would just stand there and look pathetic; maybe he just needed to grow into being a mafia man). Closing his eyes, Gokudera decided that it was just best to leave things be and the little brats would go away.

“Hey Goku-oji?!” Masaru asked. Gokudera looked up and saw the children staring at him.

“What?”

“Is it true you went to school with all our dads in Japan?”

“Your dad and Haruhi’s dad and both the Eleventh’s parents… yeah. Why?”

“See, I told you,” Masaru told Kiyohiko, slapping his cousin on the back. “That’s why you need to come back to Japan when we’re old enough to go to school together! We’ll be the most extreme trio the school’s ever seen!”

“Yeah, we can all attend Namimori like our dads!” Haruhi grinned. “Masaru-kun and I’ll make sure no one picks on you. You and I can even be in the same class since you’re not that much younger than me.”

“I-I-I don’t know you guys…” Kiyohiko stammered.

“You can live at my house!” Masaru said. “It’ll be extremely fun and we can go out for sports together!”

“Yohi-kun doesn’t do sports, Masaru-kun,” Haruhi said rather flatly. “Part of us playing outside was to teach him how to play baseball like a real Japanese kid.”

“Then why were we just playing tag?”

“…because you forgot what we were playing and started chasing after us Masaru-nii.”

“Oh, yea… I guess so.”

“Let’s get back to the game then,” Haruhi said. The two boys agreed and they went back to the game, except this time the objective was to teach Kiyohiko how to bat. Gokudera leaned back into the tree and closed his eyes again, irritated by the simple and sudden question. Children sure were pointlessly annoying sometimes.

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A/N: -nii = elder brother/elder brother figure