Len was laying in bed. He had a low fever and constant cough. It was mild Mono, and it wasn't very fun. All Len had to keep himself occupied was a television. Of course, since Len was sick, nothing good could be on TV. Therefore, Len's entertainment consisted of puking and drinking water. He didn't feel hungry, but felt that he should eat. He would have made himself some soup, but he really didn't feel up to it. Perhaps, if Rin decided to be a good sister, she would bring him some. Then again... Rin had ever been a thoughtful sister. Len frowned and coughed a bit. He had only started feeling sick yesterday, so he had awhile to spend like this. He slumped further into his bed as an infomercial for headache relief came on. He might just go insane before he got better. His frown deepened and he resigned himself to it.

Neru was shaking. She had managed to force herself to make soup for Len, but now that she was outside his door, she was having second thoughts. Slowly, she managed to force her hand up to the door, a second later and she had knocked. She waited awhile, but Len didn't respond. She decided that it would be a good thing if Len was asleep, since then she didn't have to give him the soup in person. She quietly opened the door and walked in. She glanced at Len, he looked like he was only dozing. Neru took a step, and Len moved, he looked like he might wake up. Neru quickly moved to the chair sitting by the door. Len stretched and loomed at her sleepily. Without thinking to, Neru took the spoon, and ate a spoonful of soup.

Len frowned at her. "Uhh, Hi, Neru."

Neru felt her face warm just a little. Certainly that was because the soup was still so warm. "Hi."

Len yawned and stretched again. "Is there any more soup left?" he asked.

Neru shook her head. "No, this was the only serving."

Len frowned. "Oh."

Half a minute went by, neither said anything. Neru had another spoonful.

Len coughed. "So, think I could have some of that soup?"

Neru's face reddened again. "Er, uh, sure." She walked over to him. Now, Neru was unsure of what to do. Should she just give him the bowl, or feed him some? Surely she was just being silly, she gave him the bowl.

Len smiled and took a few spoonfuls, then handed it back to Neru. "That's really good." he said, covering himself in blankets again.

Neru grinned a little at the complement. "Thanks." she mumbled. She stayed silent for a second before talking again. "I actually made it myself." She set the bowl on the night stand.

Len raised an eyebrow. "So, it wasn't canned?"

Neru shook her head.

Len looked at the ceiling. "How long did it take to make?"

Neru looked away and started to move for the door. "Awhile." she said.

Len chuckled. "That's not very helpful."

Neru turned back to him as she reached the door. "Three hours."

Len coughed. "You spent three hours making yourself soup?"

Neru opened the door and looked at the ground. "Well... It was really for you." She turned to leave.

"Wait."

Neru turned back to face him. "What?" she asked. She had intended to leave the room, as much as she liked Len, she was quite embarrassed now.

"Watch TV with me?" Len asked.

Neru was a little surprised and a little reluctant. Then again, she didn't get this chance often. She forced herself to be civil. "Sure." she said

As Neru moved for the chair, Len held the soup bowl up and said "Do you want a some more of this soup? Since you spent so long on it and only got a little."

Neru nodded and took the soup bowl. Len scooted over as she took a few sips. "It did turn out pretty well."

Len smiled. "Yeah it did." he motioned to the empty space on the bed. "You don't have to sit on the chair." he said.

Neru blinked twice. She handed the soup back to Len. Slowly, she laid herself over the blankets. She was laying on the very edge of the bed. "Is there anything decent on?" Neru asked.

Len shook his head. "Not really." He handed the remote to Neru. "A bunch of movies and some anime. I don't think any of the anime was even that good."

Neru flipped through the channels. She stopped on the cooking channel. "What about this?"

Len shrugged. "Sure" He probably needed to learn something about cooking anyway.

Evidently the show was some kind of contest between two chefs, both were told to make the same general dish, and the better one won.

The blond announcer spoke. "In this round, Chefs Kaito and Meiko will both prepare a beef curry. Any variations may be used."

Len raised an eyebrow. "Do you have a sister you never mentioned, Neru? That judge looks just like you."

Neru looked more closely at the judge. They did share quite a resemblance. "She doesn't look anything like me."

The camera moved to one chef. The chef had blue hair and a long coat. He looked up to the camera and described how he planned to make the dish. "I'm thinking about going with a simple stir fry, then 'modifying' it." He smiled and set about preparing.

The camera moved away from that chef to the other. This one had brown hair and a bright red outfit. She smiled and spoke. "I'm also going to go with a stir-fry, then I'll flambé it in flavoured sake."

Both chef quickly made their stir fries from the unnumbered ingredients around them. It only took four minutes before both were done with the stir frying.

Chef Kaito took the wok and set it in the provided sink, where he tossed several bags of ice they were supplied with. The stir-fry he had made was really simple, it consisted of only beef, some hot curry paste, and a few kaffir lime leaves. The judge was seemed curious as to why Kaito was icing the dish. When the camera moved over to him he smiled at it. "Just wait." he said.

Chef Meiko's activities were a little less ambiguous. She had made a thicker stir-fry with onion, peppers, and coriander(cilantro). Meiko searched the vast ingredients until she found a bottle. Lemon flavoured sake. She poured more than an ample amount in the wok and moved it around. Now, the chef smiled and waved the camera over. She stood back and lit a match. She then quickly moved the match into the wok and pulled it out. The resulting fireball caused Len, Neru, and the judge to jump. The chef smiled to the camera again.

Len turned to Neru. "Neru... please never do that here."

Neru just nodded. "Mmh." she mumbled. She was watching the other chef's antics. Len looked back up to the screen.

The other Chef had somehow found ice cream, and lemon flavoured at that. The judge looked like she sincerely hoped he was not thinking about using it. When the camera moved to him he simply said "Anything can be made with ice cream." The judge face-palmed.

Neru shook her head. She turned to Len. "Would you eat soup with ice cream?" she asked sarcastically.

He shrugged and grinned. "If it was chicken flavoured." Neru had to smile.

Kaito dumped the now chilled beef from his wok onto a plate on top of a scoop of lemon ice cream. He garnished the scoop with a lime leaf.

Meiko was also finishing her dish. She was 'drizzling' more sake over the stir-fry.

The judge looked simply terrified as the two presented their dishes. She slowly picked up a fork and looked between the two dishes. She settled on Kaito's first. She took a piece of beef, with a small amount of ice cream. She reluctantly ate it, her face changing to surprise as she chewed. "This is... surprisingly good." Kaito smiled and Meiko looked dumbfounded. The judge moved on to Meiko's dish. It was a wonder it wasn't charred from that fireball. Regardless, from the 'drizzling' she last applied, it probably still had a high enough alcohol content to be intoxicating from a serving or two. The judge took a bite and perked up. "It's wonderfully lemony, the alcohol isn't that strong a presence on it." Meiko smiled and Kaito looked discouraged. The judge cleared her throat and smiled. "I'll announce the results after this commercial break."

Neru turned to Len to say something witty, but found that he was asleep. She blinked a few times. Len was asleep, and she was right here. She picked up the remote and turned the TV off. She really didn't care much for the results. She looked over at the night stand to see that Len had finished the soup. Then, she looked back to Len. He had a stray noodle on his cheek. She reached over to remove it. He was asleep anyway. She held the noodle in front of her face for a second. Then ate it and blushed at her own silliness. She warily watched Len for a second, to see if he would wake up. Gently, she laid her face right in front of his. He looked even cuter when he was asleep. She blushed again at her actions. She felt a vague want to kiss him, but there was no way she would. Instead, she just laid there and watched him. She half expected him to say something or hug her in his sleep, but that evidently only happened in exceptionally cheesier love stories. Len seemed quite unaware of her existence. Neru was feeling rather bold, she carefully worked her way under the blankets, without disturbing Len. It was much warmer under the blankets. Besides turning to Len, she didn't move any more It only took a few minutes of the warmth and her stillness before she fell asleep.

-

Len woke up slowly. First he noticed the TV was off. Then he remembered he was sick with mono. Next, he noticed his legs were warm and in contact with something soft. He stopped, then slowly turned towards the other side of the bed. Neru was there, asleep. Len blinked a few times and pinched himself. He was awake, and Neru certainly wasn't. See didn't have that inhospitable air that normally surrounded her. She was kind of cute when she was asleep. Len wondered what to do at this point. Was he supposed to wake her up? Maybe just go back to sleep himself? He decided he should wake her up before someone else walked in and got the wrong idea. He gently shook her shoulder.

Neru's eyes didn't open up. She just rolled the other way and mumbled "Let me sleep Haku. I was dreaming."

Len wondered first why she assumed it was Haku, and then just what Neru had been dreaming about. He frowned and shook Neru again. This time she rolled over to face him, and without opening her eyes said "What, Haku?"

Len shook her again. "Uhh, Neru?"

Neru finally opened her eyes. When she saw Len she just stared. Len didn't move until she pinched herself. Then he laughed. "What? It's a weird situation!" she blushed and looked away.

Len soon ceased laughing. "Yeah, so I was thinking it would be a good idea if you left before someone else gets the wrong idea."

Neru blinked a few times, then quickly extracted herself from the blankets. "Well, I guess I'll go then." she quickly left. Len smiled at her antics.

As soon as Neru left the room, she was spotted by Rin. "Oh, Neru. I was wondering where you were. Anyway, it's your turn to make dinner tonight. " Rin said. Neru sighed in relief when Rin walked off without commenting that she was in Len's room.

When Neru reached the kitchen, she was shocked. It was so clean... Nobody had tried to cook themselves lunch. Only the covered pot of home made chicken stock was still out. When she told Len there was only one serving of soup, it was only half-true. She had plenty of chicken stock left over to make more with. Neru grinned at the thought of more of that wonderful soup. She wondered what to make for dinner. In this house, it was common for 'making' dinner to consist of ordering pizza. Neru actually cooked once in awhile. She thought for a second before smirking. The most brilliant idea had occurred to her. Beef curry and ice cream. She set about preparing the stir-fry. Getting the ingredients always took the longest, but since Neru was the only one who ever used the kitchen, she knew where everything was. Once she had everything together, she oiled the wok and tossed in a few mustard seeds. They would pop when the wok was hot. She wondered what flavour of ice cream would work. Without looking, she knew that they had banana, orange, 'speciality leek' and chocolate. Neru was really not a fan of banana or orange. She would never tell anyone, but secretly she loved leeks. So, chocolate it was. Shortly after finding the ice cream in question, Neru heard the mustard seeds begin popping. She threw in the raw beef and spooned in the curry paste. She quickly began moving the beef and curry paste around the wok. It wasn't hard at all to keep a dish with this few ingredients under control. Of course, the difficult part would have been adding more ingredients and getting it to work with the ice cream. Neru stopped stirring for a second to throw in the lime leaves, then left it alone for a second to go get plates. She needed five plates, she put them on the counter and stirred the dish around again. It was done after another minute, she dumped the dish dish into a large bowl, then put the bowl in the sink. She took a few ice packs out of the freezer and laid them around the dish. It cooled rapidly. Really, someone could probably get food poisoning from this, but hopefully that wouldn't happen. Neru sighed that she was done. She placed a scoop of ice cream on each plate, then distributed the meat out. She was about to call everyone, but a better thought came to mind. She would bring them the food individually. She just wanted to see the individual looks on their faces at the abnormality. First, she would take some to Haku, since she would probably be boring. Neru picked up a dish and walked off to Haku's room.

When Neru walked in, Haku looked up. She laughed when she saw Neru was carrying a dish. "Tsundere room service!" she laughed again.

Neru blushed. "I am not! J-just be quiet and eat your food."

Haku smiled and raised an eyebrow when the food was set in front of her. "Beef and ice cream? That's new." she blinked a few times and Neru nodded. Haku slowly took a bite. She blinked a few more times. "That... not that bad."

Neru playfully smacked her. "'Not that bad' she says, you're no fun." Neru grinned. Haku smiled back at her. "Anyway," Neru said, turning to leave. "I have to get everyone else some." With that, she left.

Neru went by the kitchen and grabbed another plate. She would visit Miku next. Surely Miku would have a more interesting reaction.

Neru felt a little awkward outside Miku's room. Was it weird to give in-room food service to your one true rival? Neru shrugged and decided it would be worth the philosophical contradictions to see Miku's face. She opened the door.

Miku was sitting at her desk writing music. She seemed calm by her normal standards. She didn't even look up when Neru walked in. Neru blinked a few times and set the dish next to her. Miku glanced over at the dish. "Thank you." she muttered, then returned to work. Neru walked from the room fuming. Foiled again by Miku. Neru stormed off to the kitchen. Rin was guaranteed to have an interesting reaction.

Rin was throwing a ball against the ceiling when she head a knock on the door. She quickly sat up, the ball impacting her head a second later. "Come in." she said.

Neru walked in, holding the dish down to Rin. "Enjoy." she smirked.

Rin blinked a few times. "What... Is this?"

Neru gave Rin a pitiful look. "Beef curry and ice cream. Won't you try it?"

Rin slowly took the plate and fork. "Uhh sure?" Her face was truly priceless. Neru ran from the room and began laughing. Now it was only Len and herself, Len probably wouldn't be that interesting. After all he had already seen it.

Neru picked up her plate as well, it would save her the last run to the kitchen.

Len was sleepily watching TV again. He wasn't even really aware of what was on. He looked up when Neru opened the door without knocking. She set a plate with... beef curry and ice cream in front of him. "What on earth is this?" he asked.

Neru blinked a few times then laughed. "You must have been asleep before that... Remember that cooking show? The blue haired chef made this."

Len laughed and took a bite. "It's... really pretty good."

Neru grinned and walked to the door. "Glad you like it."

"Why don't you eat yours in here?" Len asked as Neru opened the door to leave.

Neru paused for a second. She didn't want to embarrass herself again, but evidently Len didn't mind. She shrugged. "Sure." she said. Neru walked back over and laid down on the empty half of the bed. Hopefully it wouldn't end up awkward.

Len spoke first. "So, who won?" he asked

It took Neru a second to realise what he was talking about. "I don't know. I turned it off first."

Len grinned. "So then you decided to take a nap with me?" He was only joking. It was in Neru's nature to fall asleep wherever.

Neru looked away. "Yeah, well it wasn't because of you. I was bored and tired so I took a nap."

Len nodded. "Sure thing, Neru." He hadn't expected her to have a reaction to that.

"W-what? Was there something wrong with it?" Neru was blushing madly now.

Len decided he'd had his fun. "I'm just joking, I thought it was nice." Did he think it was nice? He supposed he did.

Neru stopped. "Heh. I knew that." she said.

Len nudged her. "You're so funny, Neru."

Neru looked away. "What do you mean?"

Len looked at the ceiling. "Well, you almost never say what you mean the first time, and you're so shy." he shrugged.

Neru completely turned away. "It's not my fault." she mumbled

Len laughed. "I never said it was a bad thing. It's actually kind of cute when you're finally straightforward with something."

Neru blinked a few times and blushed furiously. She was glad that she was faced away from Len. Did he really think she was cute?

Len waited for Neru to reply for a minute or so, but she didn't. He laid on his side to better see her. He had always wondered about the intentional hole on the back of her shirt. He reached over to poke the exposed skin, more to break the silence than anything else. "Poke." he said.

Neru jumped up and fell off the bed. She raised her head up over the edge, with an angry look on her face. "What'd you do that for?"

Len shrugged. "To get you to start talking again." He moved the blankets on her side over.

Neru eyed the moved blanket. She hesitantly got under the blanket, then realised Len had left the sheet between them. She didn't know whether to be glad or disappointed. "TV again?" Neru asked.

Len shrugged and handed her the remote. "Sure, but I don't think anything is on."