Why one should NEVER invite Jirou for a sleepover party Why Jirou should NOT be invited for sleepover parties

"Hey everybody!! It's my birthday it's my birthday it's my birthday!!" Jirou, all too wide-awake for everybody's comfort, bounced into the clubroom wearing a huge grin. "Did you know it's my birthday?!"

Shishido groaned. "Yes, we do know."

"How did you know how did you know how did you know?! I only just told you!!" cried the birthday boy.

"You told us about fifty times yesterday," Yuushi reminded him.

Jirou yawned, already starting to fall asleep as his energy faded at an impossible speed. "Oh…" Stumbling over to a couch nearby (this being Hyotei, they were rich enough to have couches instead of benches), he curled up on it and started snoring.

Gakuto blinked. "Whoa, he's asleep already?!"

"Looks like it," replied the dash specialist, for once in agreement with the redhead. "It can only be an improvement."

At that point, the door swung open to reveal Atobe and Choutarou with a veritable legion of screaming fangirls at their heels. Both quickly ducked into the relative safety of the clubroom, effectively getting rid of the squeals of "Kyaaa!! Atobe-sama!! Ootori-kun!!"

"Is Jirou-sempai around?" inquired the younger boy. "Oh, he's –"

"Sleeping," grunted Shishido. "Happily."

"For us, not for him," Gakuto clarified.

"Oh…" The tall sophomore frowned slightly. "Well, I'll just tell all of you first, then."

Atobe emerged from the changing rooms, looking distinctly annoyed. In a lesser man his expression would have been described as peeved. "Ore-sama still thinks that Ore-sama should be the one to hold it."

"Hold what?" demanded the redhead.

"Kaa-san said it'd be fine to hold a sleepover at my place for Jirou-sempai," explained Choutarou. "I thought it'd be fun, see –"

Yuushi glanced up, holding his place in a suspiciously pink book with a finger. "Atobe always holds the sleepovers. This would be a change."

Shishido nodded decisively. "Yes, it's a great idea. Let's do that. Your hospitality would be an improvement on Atobe's any day."

"Nothing can be an improvement on Ore-sama's hospitality!" protested the diva, highly affronted.

Returning to his book, the blunette smirked. "Keep telling yourself that, Atobe. It'll keep you in a good mood."

"Jirou-sempai, we're going to hold a sleepover party at my place tonight for you, ne?" Choutarou shook his sempai, hoping that he'd hear.

"Nnnnngh… just a few more minutes, Mi-chan…" mumbled the orange-haired boy. "'m sleepy; only got to bed at six…"

Choutarou blinked. "You what?"

"What did he say?" inquired the redhead, curious.

"H-he said he slept at… eto, six in the morning or in the afternoon, sempai?" asked the tall sophomore uncertainly.

His only reply was a snore. Yuushi chuckled from somewhere behind his book. "I think you can take that as an affirmative as to the sleepover?"

"Usu," put in Kabaji, appearing from the changing rooms.

"Oi!!" came a shout from outside the clubroom. "Mortals! For making Ore-sama wait, the lot of you can run twenty laps for warm-up!"

"When did he get out there?" demanded Gakuto, sticking his head out of the window. "Atobe! What about Hiyoshi? He hasn't even arrived yet!"

"He gets forty! Now hurry up!" Atobe stomped off towards the courts in a huff.

--

"…"

"…"

"…"

"Agh, this just feels weird," complained Gakuto, breaking the silence at last. "I mean, since when does someone blow out the candles on his birthday cake with a snore?!"

"Since Akutagawa Jirou was born into this world," replied Shishido resignedly. "Well, now that it's over, let's get the real fun started."

Atobe sniffed, still in a foul mood. "Ore-sama believes that this would not have been so much of a flop if it had been he who was holding this sleepover. Na, Kabaji?"

"Usu," agreed the huge guy. He was already cutting the cake.

Choutarou fixed his eyes on the floor in shame, and Shishido glared at their buchou. "Shut up, moron. Look what you've done now."

The diva refused to dignify that with a response, simply taking the piece of cake Kabaji handed to him. Yuushi looked up, saw that all was well (or so he though), shrugged and went back to his book.

"Yuushi, at a party, one is supposed to socialize, not hide behind a book." Gakuto, pissed, stole the book from the blunette. "What is this anyway? Meg Cabot? Yuushi, how many times have I told you?! In the name of Buddha's ever-expanding belly button, it's the girls who read books by her!"

"Freshmen," put in Hiyoshi, devouring the cake. "The freshmen girls were reading that book. I saw."

Yuushi grabbed for his book. "They have good taste in literature. Give it back, Gakuto," he added, as the redhead evaded him, holding the book tantalizingly beyond his reach.

"Not 'till you agree to play 'I've Never' with us," he grinned.

The bespectacled boy frowned slightly before giving up the chase and dropping back onto his futon. "Fine. Now give it." He caught it easily as Gakuto tossed it back and returned to his own futon.

"Wait, since when were we playing 'I've Never'?" demanded Shishido.

"Since I said so," replied Gakuto cheerfully. "Yuushi, you go first."

--

Everything went more or less smoothly after that – just like a normal sleepover, the boys played games, talked, ate, complained, told ghost stories etc. Since the next day was Sunday, everyone stayed up late, and by the time they'd fallen asleep it was almost two in the morning.

Shishido moaned. Somebody was shaking him. Surely it wasn't already morning; he felt like he'd only just fallen asleep! "Nnnngh… whaddahell d' you want…"

"Ne, ne, Shishido, I'm awake now! What shall we do?" The shorter boy's eyes flew open. Jirou was awake at – he checked his watch hurriedly – three in the morning?! Of all people, Jirou?! He was the narcoleptic, for Kami's sake!!

He was dreaming. Yup, this was definitely a dream. Or a nightmare. Whatever.

Groaning, Shishido closed his eyes again, only to be shaken even more violently. "Shishido!!" insisted the birthday boy.

"'m sleepy, Jirou…" he mumbled. "Go wake up Choutarou or somebody; just lemme sleep…"

"I already did," explained the other boy. "Atobe and Yuushi mumbled; Choutarou didn't wake up at all; Hiyoshi and Gakuto whacked me." If Shishido had been awake enough to see straight, he'd have noticed that Jirou's eyes were brimming. "And on my birthday, too!"

Groaning, Shishido yanked the covers over his head. Why him? Why hadn't the others woken up? "Don't tempt me. You do realize that it technically isn't your birthday anymore, right?"

"Mou… everybody's so mean…" Jirou finally left the dash specialist alone, vanishing to do who-knows-what.

The rest of the boys were so deeply asleep that the occasional triumphant "Yes! Got it!" or disappointed "Oh shoot, just missed it!" from the adjoining room went completely unnoticed.

--

By the time everyone had woken up, it was almost noon. It was a while (during which they went to freshen up and recover themselves) before anyone realized that Jirou was missing from the group.

Atobe was the first to notice. "Where is Jirou?" he demanded.

Gakuto yawned. "Eh? Wasn't he right – oh, he's not."

"Now that you mention it, I haven't seen him since we woke up." Choutarou looked worried. "I hope nothing happened to him… he doesn't sleepwalk, right?"

There was a collective sweatdrop. "Jirou sleepwalking…"

"Well, he goes around half asleep all the time," defended the tall sophomore.

"Point," agreed Gakuto reluctantly. "But I do seem to remember someone trying to wake me up…"

Hiyoshi nodded. "Me too."

"He did wake me up," grumbled Shishido. "Jirou. But I told him to go away, and he left me alone."

Everyone exchanged glances. "So where…?"

As if in answer, there was a shout from the adjacent room – Choutarou's study room. "Yes!! Level fifty!!"

"He's gaming?!" Choutarou quickly opened the door, and exactly as he'd said, there sat the missing boy, furiously gaming on the Wii player.

Jirou looked up at them with a gigantic grin. "Oh-hayoooo!! Finally decided to wake up?"

That statement effectively rendered all the other Hyotei regulars speechless. This was Jirou asking if they'd finally decided to wake up. Anyone who knew Jirou would have been bowled over.

"I – you – what the hell?!" shouted Shishido. "You can't mean to say that you've been here since I went back to sleep?!"

The orange-haired boy nodded cheerily. "Yup, I was. Ne, Choutarou, be grateful to me – I upped you from level ten to level fifty!!"

Their host blinked. "You know, I quite pleased with myself for getting to level ten…"

"Eh?!" Jirou pouted. "I thought you'd be happy –"

"No, I am happy," the younger boy hurriedly reassured his sempai. "It's just… I'm afraid your hard work might go to waste…"

Now Jirou smiled happily. "Don't worry; I'm at level eighty-five on my Wii back home!"

Shishido cut in. "Jirou, since when did you play on your Wii? I thought only your brother did!"

"No," he grinned. "He plays during the day. When he goes to sleep, I play!"

Gakuto stared. "So you play every night?!"

Yuushi resurfaced from his book. "It does sort of explain why Jirou's always sleeping in class and during tennis…"

Atobe facepalmed. "How did Ore-sama think he was a narcoleptic and not an obsessive gamer?!"

"Gekokujyou," muttered Hiyoshi under his breath.

"Usu," Kabaji agreed.

--

A/N: O.o Tell me, was that crap, or was that crap?! Ahwells. Happy birthday to our cute narcoleptic Jirou!! I rushed to write this ficcy in time to upload it on his birthday; hopefully it doesn't suck too badly… REVIEW PLEASE!!

P.S. Is there a name for the AtoJi pairing?!