Written in late 2016, by request.

Reiji loved science. When he was young, his parents had taken him to a kid's science and exploration museum, and he learned all about how water boiled and how objects floated due to buoyancy. He became enamored with the idea of science – The pursuit of an art, a noble profession, one that would never cease to amaze him.

His parents had thought he would grow out of it, but were not disappointed when his passion for it continued. He got new materials every year and books to read, and when he showed them his experiments, they would always watch and listen attentively.

In middle school, his love of science led to being the pride of the science team, and private instruction from a teacher who recognized his abilities. And in high school, he was permitted to spend hours after class in the science lab – one of his perks for being in class 1-A.

One afternoon, he came into the science lab to see a boy with dark hair and droopy eyes sitting before a beaker of water, a balloon and paper cup, and a Bunsen burner. Reiji knew him – he was in 1-B. However, he had no idea what his name was, just that 1-B had science in the lab before 1-A and Reiji came in early every single time. That boy with dark hair had always been there, being woken up by the professor and mildly chastised before heading out.

Judging by the contents on the table before him, the boy was doing a make-up lab from last week. Reiji gave the boy an acknowledging nod and sat a couple counters away, watching him out of the corner of his eye.

They just sat there. Five minutes later, they hadn't really moved too much, aside from turning on the burner while reading the instructions. Reiji wondered if he needed help – the teacher wasn't in the room and he was, so he could provide the assistance. He finished the last line of his science homework before looking up again, and saw the boy swaying gently back and forth, and Reiji began to stand slowly, then gave a cry as the boy's face fell forward towards the Bunsen burner.

"Woah woah woah!" Reiji took the boy's shoulders and pulled back as best he could, and he jolted awake, feeling the heat from the burner that was inches from his face.

"Yikes." He moved his hands up to touch Reiji's on his shoulders, sitting up and turning to face the boy behind him. "Thanks."

Reiji gave an excited nod. "You're welcome! You looked like you were… well, falling asleep. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, yeah…" The dark-haired boy looked like he still hadn't quite woken up yet, however, causing Reiji to give his shoulders another small shake, his head rolling around like a doll's.

"You seem like a really sleepy guy," Reiji said, carefully moving the Bunsen burner away before fully letting go of the other boy. "You even forgot to put your goggles on before this."

The boy sighed, grabbing the goggles. Reiji began to lean around and help prepare the balloon with water, while Ren poured the water into a paper cup. While they did so, the teacher walked back into the room, looking to say something about Reiji helping, but then thought better of it, going back to their computer and turning on a Solitaire game.

"Ready?" Reiji turned on the heat and allowed the other boy to pick up the first paper cup, which was empty, with tongs.

It suddenly caught fire.

"Woah woah woah! Yes!" Reiji gave a whoop and the teacher spun around, watching the two boys begin to quickly place the cup on the heat-resistant mat beneath the burner and covering it with a damp cloth.

"I… I didn't quite expect it to catch fire like that. At least, I should have, but…" The boy turned to his paper, writing down something for the paper before quickly going back to the experiment. Reiji was preparing the second paper cup, this time filled with water. He allowed the other boy to set up the tripod, putting the water cup over it. Instead of the cup catching fire, it began to heat up, getting the water to a slow boil after just a few minutes. The only evidence of any fire was a charred base of the cup.

He smiled, understanding the concept instantly as he wrote down the observations and temperature of the water, much to Reiji's excitement as he began to rub his hands together.

"Here, ready, I bet we can go even further." Reiji cast a glance at the teacher out the corner of his eye, seeing that they were distracted by their Solitaire game on the computer. Looking back to the experiment on the burner, he turned up the heat on the paper cup, getting a bigger flame. "Let's see what happens when the water runs out and cup runs dry."

They waited, both of them patiently watching the flame in wordless silence. The cup dried, and the bottom began to char ever further as the small amount of water turned to steam. Then the cup began to dry… and before long—

Fwoosh! It caught fire again, and they quickly scrambled to get the thongs and set the cup down to get in on the mat.

"Reiji! Ren!" The teacher was now out of their chair. "Do not set things on fire that are not supposed to be! You were only supposed to set the first cup on fire as a trial experiment."

Reiji nodded, as did the dark-haired boy beside him, before the teacher sat back down, slowly turning back around. "Do the balloon section next. No extra experiments."

Reiji stuck his tongue out at the teacher when their back turned, before looking to the other boy. "So you're Ren?"

"Yes. And you're Reiji?"

"Pleasure to meet you, friend!" He stuck his hand out, and Ren took it hesitantly, giving the orange-haired boy a weak smile.

"Good to meet you too."

Reiji released his hand, picking up the balloon. "Now, do you want to stick to the rules, or do you want to go beyond the call of science's limits?"

Ren smiled. "Now you're talking."

"Here I am, Ren!" Reiji walked into the science classroom, happy to finally be allowed back in after hours – ever since the flaming cup incident, it had taken Reiji and Ren a while to get permissions again. Finding Ren already waiting with his head in his arms on the table, Reiji plopped his books on the desk then began to move to the front of the room. Ren watched as he collected the beakers and chemicals leftover from Class 1-A's lab that day, but something out of the corner of his eye caught him attention.

Reiji's books began to slide, the ones at the top of his stack of binders beginning to fall to the floor. Ren moved to grab what he could, but one small notebook evaded his grasp and hit the floor, opening up and revealing the contents. Ren gave a groan and leaned over, collecting it and beginning to close it when the text inside caught his eye.

What element is a girl's future best friend? Carbon! … The name's Bond, Ionic Bond. Taken, not shared. … A photon checks into a hotel and the bellhop asks him if he has any luggage, the photon replies, "No, I'm travelling light…"

"Reiji…" Ren looked to the boy at the front of the room. "What are these?"

Reiji turned to look back, and gave a small, surprised sound when he saw what Ren was holding.

"Nothing is in there! Nothing you need to see at all, Ren, haha… Just put it back…!"

Ren raised an eyebrow, and instead went back to looked at the pages, reading them aloud.

"Sixteen sodium atoms walk into a bar… followed by Batman… you counted?"

"Put it down—!"

"If the Silver Surfer and Iron Man teamed up, they'd be alloys… The chemist sees the glass as completely full, half with liquid and half with air…"

"Ren, please—"

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. Are these getting more obscure?" He flicked a couple pages ahead. "A fellow accidentally ingested some alpha-L glucose and discovered that he had no ill effect? Apparently, he was amidextrose… Did you just mutate for a stop codon? Because you're talking nonsense…"

"Ren!" Reiji cried out and came to pull the book from his hands, and Ren couldn't help but chuckle a little bit at his friend's embarrassment. "You think up all these science puns?"

"I write the good ones down. And some I find online." Reiji shoved it underneath his pile of books. "Let's just get to working on the science lab."

"Whatever you say, Reiji."

"You did not have to go and read my notebook."

"It's fine. Now that I know you write your own puns, I'm sure I'll never hear the end of your newest ones."

Reiji was silent.

"It's only 8:30 PM."

"That doesn't matter. Let me sleep."

"We have the school-wide semester aptitude tests tomorrow, and you want to sleep?"

"Sure do."

Ren and Reiji were over at Reiji's apartment, sitting in beanbags at a low table. Books covered the table, ranging from subjects in English to world history to the sciences. Notebooks were tossed open and two soda cups sat on the floor alongside a half-finished box of Oreos.

"Put the pillow down." Reiji scratched a pencil through a wrong answer on an English sample exam, joining the many marks that covered the paper.

"Nope. I'm gonna sleep." He fluffed the cloth and slid his arms under it, supporting his head as he began to close his eyes.

Reiji kicked the underside of the table.

"Ouch!" Ren turned and glared at him, while Reiji continued writing.

"What question's that."

"Hm?"

"What's the question you're crossing out right now."

"It's 'What was the author trying to achieve with the symbolism of the weather in the story'. Do you need the packet or—"

"That's A. They were using the weather to convey the main character's emotions in a physical way."

Reiji looked at Ren's hands, then at the table, seeing no English exam papers around him. He then checked the answer. He was right.

"What about two questions before that?" Reiji asked cautiously, as if he was afraid of what Ren would say.

"Was that the question about how the writer uses flashbacks to tell the story in an integrated fashion?"

"…Yes." Reiji leaned back into his beanbag a bit, intrigued by Ren's memorization abilities. "And the answer was…?"

"C."

He was right again. Reiji asked him a few more questions, before Ren's head lifted from his pillow.

"What's the point of this?"

Reiji blinked, then realized he had accidentally been running an experiment on Ren. His ability to recall the entire test layout and their correct answers was something to be seriously admired. And for English, too! Ren had been good about recalling directions during science experiments and what chemicals would create a reaction, so Reiji had pegged him a scientist-mind as well… but to be good at English…

"Sorry to bother you. I'll take a break and do the science exam again."

"Can I get some shut-eye now?"

"Twenty minutes."

"That's not enough. Just let me sleep."

Reiji smiled, knowing that he was most certainly going to wake Ren up in twenty minutes on the dot. They still had tests to study for. And he wasn't about to let him sleep.

After finishing the science portion in a record fifteen minutes, Reiji went around his apartment, checking on a few of his chemical solutions. He had experiments constantly running in his apartment, as he began work on a new one whenever he got a flash of inspiration. Sometimes, he felt like it wasn't worth waking up at 3 AM to check the barometric pressure outside for one of his experiments, but then that moment of quiet in the morning air, seeing the newly formed dew on the grass as he did so, getting results for the sake of science… he remembered what he did this for.

He loved science, he mused as he poured another dosage of a solution into a set of plants, then another beaker's worth of a different one into a set of plants nearby. Something about it seemed unlimited, that there was always something new to explore… always something new to see.

Science. He particularly found himself attached to astronomy and chemistry, but knew that he could do any branch and find himself happy there. That was how much he found himself attached to—

The default phone alarm went off in his pocket, reminding him that twenty minutes was up. Stepping back over to Ren, he crouched down and gently nudged him awake.

"No… no, let me sleep." Ren turned his head away from Reiji, giving a groan.

"I will tell puns until you wake up."

No response came from Ren, and Reiji took a deep breath.

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate… Hey, Ren, do you know why organic chemistry is difficult? Because those who study it have alkynes of trouble! … Wow, you're not really waking up, are you.

"How can you tell the difference between a chemist and a plumber? You ask them to pronounce 'unionized'… Okay, did you know that biology is the only science in which multiplication is the same thing as division? …Hey, a couple of biologists at the place I work at had twins, Ren! Guess what they named them? They named one Jessica, and the other Control."

He heard a snort from the other boy, and Reiji grinned broadly. "You laughed! You laughed at it, come on, wake up!"

"I'm up, how could I sleep with you telling puns in my ear?"

Reiji laughed in response and flopped back into his chair. "All right, come on Mr. Memorization. You've got a few more tests to help me with."

"Whatever you say, Reiji."

The day of the exams came and went. The weekend went by without incident, and Reiji met up with him on Monday, going right to the bulletin board where students had gathered to see their rankings. And stopped in surprise.

Reiji's mouth hadn't quite closed yet, but Ren was staring with an almost bored expression.

It was unheard of for anybody not in Class A to get top five. But there sat Ren's name, in the number three slot.

Reiji had no idea that Ren did well on exams. Sure, he had noticed Ren's knack for science and memorization, but the fact that his overall grades and scores put him at the top of the list…

"What's your IQ, Ren?"

"Hm?" Ren turned to Reiji, a questioning look on his face. "Why do you ask?"

"I mean… that is an astronomically high score! Look at it!"

"I see it."

"Ren, what's your IQ."

"I don't know."

Within the next two days, Reiji saw to it that Ren took an IQ exam, mostly by asking teachers if they knew and then pointing out his score on the schoolwide tests. So Ren ended up being forced to take the exam, and while they were calculating it, Reiji asked him how it had gone.

"They ran out of questions to give me," he said with a sigh. "The entire process was troublesome. And totally unnecessary."

Reiji's shoulders dropped at his friend's nonchalant attitude, hoping that he had at least given the test his best effort and that he wouldn't get an inaccurate score, unlike the one he supposedly got on his entrance exam.

"Hey, actually, Ren, what did you score on your entrance—"

"Mr. Ren?" Someone stepped out of the room, a completed score sheet in hand. They had a stunned look on their face, and Reiji fell silent as Ren said, "That's me."

"Your scores… well, we'll need to cross-reference them, but it seems that your score is around the 170 to 190 range… it's extremely high."

Reiji turned to his friend excitedly and took hold of his arm. "That's amazing! Oh my gosh, that's so exciting and to have something so high—"

"Thank you." Ren was unmoved by his friends rapid shaking of his arm and upbeat attitude. "It's good to know."

"Of course, Mr. Ren. We'll… most likely be in touch about a change of class level for you." The teacher gave him a small nod, and Ren returned it, standing up and leaving with Reiji close behind.

"170 to 190! Ren! That's so cool, I knew you had to be something like that, call it an educated guess based on the facts—"

"Sure is special."

"It is! You realize we might be in the same class now, right?"

Ren stopped walking, and Reiji took a few more steps before turning around to face his friend.

"What's the matter?"

Ren was silent for a moment, staring very hard at Reiji. The usual droop in his eyes was gone, replaced with a smile as his eyes lit up.

"The same class, with you… that will be nice. I'd like that a lot."

Reiji processed what his friend had said, before giving a yell of excitement and wrapping his arms around Ren in a hug, swinging around.

"Me too! We'll have a great bunch of classes together, just you wait!"

"Yes, yes…!" Ren planted his feet to the ground with a sigh, patting Reiji on the back when he stopped spinning as well. "Now, can I go sleep after that test?"

"Of course! But first, I have to ask… why weren't you in Class A to begin with?"

Ren's cheeks turned slightly pink, and Reiji tilted his head to one side. "Ren…?"

"I… I answered the questions I thought necessary to get into Class A then fell asleep. However, I made a miscalculation in the algorithm and ended up in Class B." He gave a small cough. "My mistake."

Reiji stared, then began to laugh, hugging his friend again. "Well, you're going to get in now! And we'll be together!"

"Yes," Ren said, his small smile coming back. "And I look forward to it."