The fact that Yamamoto hadn't been at the back of the school like he was supposed to when Reborn recruited him to be one of Tsuna's Guardians had Noelle practically up all night and it showed when she had slept most of the school day away right until PE.
"Noelle-chan, are you alright?" Kyoko asked when came up to her desk right before PE.
"H-huh?" The blonde stumbled over her words, rubbing blearily at her sore tired eyes. The question that Kyoko asked her then registered in her head and she answered almost immediately, if not in a somewhat slurred tone. "Yeah, m'fine. Didn't get as much sl-sleep as I usually did."
She stretched her arms over her head and tried to stifle a yawn.
Her classmate and friend looked concerned. "Maybe you should go to the nurse's office if you aren't feeling that well."
Stifling another yawn, Noelle waved off Kyoko's worries. "As I said, I'll be okay. Just a little sleepy; nothing to be frantic about. Besides, school's nearly over so I'll be fine."
But Noelle's enthusiasm in convincing the school idol that she was okay didn't work. Though that may have been the fact that she nearly tripped on her own feet getting out from behind her desk.
"See! I'm perfectly okay!" Yeah, even Noelle didn't believe that.
She took a few more steps before crashing into another desk with a thud.
"Noelle-chan..."
"Yeah, I know."
With Gokudera's grudging help at the prodding of the one he called the Tenth, Noelle made it to the nurse's office and was immediately fussed over by a kind woman who was the nurse before Dr. Shamal, the most notorious doctor to have ever existed in being both perverse and dangerous through use of infections.
How exactly did Shamal get the job anyways?
And why did Noelle have an ominous feeling that Reborn might have had something to do with the current nurse quitting and the womanizer doctor getting the job? Not that it would have surprised her or anything, considering that the evil baby hitman did food poison four people so that Tsuna would be forced into playing a volley ball game.
Now that she was on a proper bed with a fluffy pillow, Noelle was able to easily catch up on sleep. She didn't need much of it since she slept through most of her classes, but it was still nice to not wake up with a cramp in her neck. Or a ruler meeting the back of her head courtesy of whatever teacher was teaching at that moment.
0000
When she woke up again, the sun was beginning to set. The temporary rest had done wonders as she felt extremely well-rested and refreshed. Thanking the nurse, she took her school bag that a boy that strongly resembled Tsuna's description had so kindly dropped off for her after school had finished for the day.
Stretching her arms, she walked past the baseball field to see a lone figure holding a baseball bat. Standing several feet away from the figure was a baseball pitching machine that launched white baseballs at an extremely fast speed which the person would hit into the distance.
There was only person who was that good at baseball and would stay this late to practice their batting skills.
Yamamoto.
From the other side of the fence, Noelle silently watched. Something in her stomach lurched and she bit down hard on her lip. There was no doubt that the baseball player would eventually become Tsuna's Rain Guardian but there were two versions as to how that had happened: the one that Noelle was more familiarized with was when he had obliviously joined while holding a stick of lit dynamite, thinking that it was just a super fun game.
The other version was because Tsuna inadvertently said something that resulted in Yamamoto breaking his arm during practice and then attempting to commit suicide by jumping off the school roof.
While Noelle thought that the baseball player's reason for trying to end his life was stupid, it probably didn't seem like a dumb idea to him. Baseball was his passion, and who was she to pass judgement on such thinking? If she could no longer do something she passionately loved doing, she'd probably be in a state of despair.
Noelle shook her head to clear her head of such thinking.
No.
It had been a spur of the moment thing. The idea had most likely not settled into his head immediately since he didn't try to kill himself when he went home after getting his broken arm patched up.
Which she supposed was a good thing since at least Tsuna was able to save his life, with Reborn's help.
"Noelle-chan!" The blonde looked up to see the sweaty dark haired boy waving at her, grin on his face. He had just been taking a momentary breather when he spotted the foreign student staring blankly at him.
"Did you get a good sleep?" He shouted at her from across the field.
She was about to answer back when movement from her peripheral vision caused her to pale. Yamamoto hadn't turned off the pitching machine and with it being an automatic meant for the purpose launching baseballs, did not understand that the black haired boy was completely unprepared to hit the ball back.
"Yamamoto! Look out!"
But by that time, it was already too late.
There was a sickening crack and Yamamoto fell over on to the ground, clutching his now broken arm and groaning in pain. Noelle immediately raced to the machine to shut it off while simultaneously bringing out her cellphone to call for an ambulance to bring him to the hospital.
She went over to Yamamoto, her stomach churning and her face even more pale than when she saw that the baseball player had forgotten to turn off the machine.
While Noelle knew that Tsuna would save him tomorrow, it was still unsettling to know what Yamamoto would try on the school roof tomorrow
