When Rei was partnered with Nagisa on a science test tomorrow, he had no idea what he was in for. Nagisa was always his best friend He never wanted to say anything hurtful or wrong about him and often tried making excuses for Nagisa being...himself. As irritating as his feelings of devotion for Nagisa were, however, he felt they were both doomed when Rei took a look at his notebook.

Right now, in the middle of the night, his mind ceased focus. He had to speak up for one thing, the most bothersome trait bout Nagisa that made all of his other flaws pale in comparison. Rei hated to say it, but...

"Your handwriting sucks!"

Nagisa jumped up from the exclamation, spluttering himself silly because he was asleep. Rei saw Nagisa's jump and stared in confusion as Nagisa tried looking in his surroundings but somehow, strangely enough, sticky notes were stuck on his forehead.

His partner began to panic, "Rei, where are you? I'm blind, I can't-"

"You're not blind," Rei sighed in exhaustion. He got off from his chair, sat on the floor, took one pink sticky note off his forehead and saw his eye blinking in surprise at him. "You've been putting sticky notes on yourself this whole time and somehow fell asleep."

"Oh, right," he laughed shyly as he pulled some of the notes off his face. "I forgot why I did that."

"You said it would, 'get the knowledge inside you' or something like that if you put notes all over yourself."

Nagisa chuckled to himself and asked, "What did you say before, I didn't hear it?"

"Oh, right...your handwriting is...bad."

Rei saw Nagisa look up in shock. "Huh, what do you mean?"

"I mean..." Rei took one of Nagisa's notebooks down, opened up a random page and displayed it on his lap, "I can't understand if you're trying to make it cursive or what, but none of this seems like English or Japanese writing to me."

Looking at his work, Nagisa felt his forehead knotted in concentration.

"I don't understand what you're talking about,"

Rei felt a breath of air escaped from his open mouth, "Are you kidding?"

"What, I don't get what you are saying?" Nagisa complained, confused and agitated now that they were arguing.

"What does this say?" Rei asked, pointing at a random word on the page.

"That?" Nagisa asked, surprised. "That says 'the formula for the test will-'"

"How can you even read this?" Rei gaped at him with a shrill of bewilderment.

"It's my handwriting!" Nagisa declared, raising his voice. "Of course I'd understand what this says, it makes sense to me since I write in school everyday. No one every complained about it."

"Then...why can I understand it?" Rei asked, confused of the situation and how it was handling itself poorly.

"I guess you haven't read any of my notebooks or anything before," Nagisa suggested passively, returning to the floor and stuck a few notes on his skin. He went back to 'studying' in silence and Rei, becoming anxious about Nagisa's handwriting and his inability to read it, he reached down for Nagisa's shoulder and shook hard for his attention.

"What?" Nagisa asked, his voice slurred and tired. He still remained on the floor, trying to escape his responsibilities.

"You're gonna have to read this for me!"

"Read it for you?"

"Yeah, I can't read any of this. You know you're best at Chemistry-"

"I thought we were studying Physics?"

Rei shook his head, banishing his mind's persistence of sleep and to correct Nagisa, "No, Chem, and don't say you're not smart at this subject. You really are and I don't want either of us failing this exam so we have to keep studying, even if that means we might not sleep for another two or so hours."

Nagisa blinked with an exhausted yawn, "Fine, fine," he grumbled, "but you're gonna have to do something for me..."

"What?"

"Give me...some candy..."

"That'll rot your teeth!"

"It'll keep me up with all the sugar. I know you secretly keep those non-melting candies under your mattress." Nagisa walked on his knees over to Rei's bed, pulled the mattress up and his hand searched for Rei's secret stash.

"How did you know that?"

"Your mom said that,"

"She doesn't-"

"Trust me, she does and wants you to stop doing that. Here we go." Nagisa successfully found a brand new chocolate bar and tore it open with his teeth. Taking a bite, he moaned at the delectable treat and said, "Give me my notebook and we'll start."

XxXxXxX

"So, what does this say?"

"'The equation is four,'" Nagisa answered.

Since Rei had Nagisa read out his answers and notes, he was working in a better and quicker speed with all the answers and tricks he was given. Although Rei heard Nagisa's yawns full of exhaustion, his friend persisted speaking loud and clear. Rei hadn't paid much close attention to the sound of Nagisa's voice but now, having him close by and speaking out formulas, it was oddly an intriguing fascination. He wanted nothing more than to hear his voice speaking like this, close to Rei's side and speaking to him as though he was the only one that mattered.

Rei blinked in bewilderment. He was thinking too selfishly, and he had no idea what had gotten into him to think like this. He forced his focus on the task at hand and wrote down the new formula pattern.

"Right, and this one?"

"I love you."

"Okay, and how about..." Rei's mind triggered what Nagisa had said. Or did he really say that?

He turned his eyes toward Nagisa who stared at him with eyes full of hope.

"I said, 'I love you'."

Rei stared in disbelief at his partner. Nagisa was expressing a serious expression, something he never done before. It was rather frightening to see Nagisa like this, but it made Rei think how serious he was for this sudden, out of the blue confession. He had to ask, however, just to be sure that this wasn't just a strange, unrealistic confession because of his lack of sleep.

"I...are you serious?"

"Yes, I am,"

"You're not joking?"

"No, I'm not joking with you, Rei."

Rei paused his interrogation and glanced at his alarm clock, the hands saying it was ten past one in the morning, and looked at Nagisa's eyes staring intensely at him, waiting for an answer. Was this a dream, or a hallucination? They haven't slept since Nagisa arrival at four yesterday afternoon, and this test tomorrow-er, today-was going to be intense. If Nagisa was serious couldn't he have confessed at a better time, like not right now?

Rei opened his mouth, hoping a response will answer for him but nothing came out. Oddly enough, Nagisa took it as the perfect moment to lean his face closer to Rei's stunned face and right when he was about to do it, he stopped and hesitated. Maybe Rei only saw him as a friend, he felt his stomach rumbled out of anxiousness and the moment was completely ruined when Rei's face pulled away and he asked if he was hungry.

"Uh...no, I just-" But his stomach gave him an answer by rumbling louder than Nagisa's stuttering words.

"I'll get you something to eat, stay here and...I'll need a moment to think about it," Rei got off from the ground and headed for the door, exited and made his quiet way downstairs and into the kitchen.

Rei distracted himself by searching for a cup of instant noodles. It was only a few minutes later that his thoughts traced their way back into consideration when Rei finished filling the cup with water and put it in the microwave to cook. As he watched the noodle cup rotating in the heat with a tired expression, he thought about what Nagisa had declared so suddenly a few minutes ago.

What should he say? Should he be honest and say he had no idea how to feel of Nagisa's declaration or should he...no, he can't reject him. He is his best friend, he loved him like one...and there were times, awkwardly enough, he felt like he was more than a friend. But he always pushed those ideas away out of fear of losing his friend. But he confessed first, he made the move and now, everything was falling apart in the most ironic way possible. It was ironic because Rei thought himself as the one who said everything first...

But now he knew Nagisa might be feeling the same way now, even after leaving him like this for a cup of noodles...

I never knew what it might be like if we were like normal couples... he thought. We could hold hand, go on dates...kiss...

Rei felt his heart hammering inside, almost as if his heart would burst out and fall onto the floor, pounding furiously of the intense emotion he was feeling. If Nagisa felt the same feelings like him, why can't they make this work? Suddenly, Rei heard his microwave beeping four times-he waited a minute for the noodles to cool off before taking it out, steaming through the half-opened lid.

When Rei returned, cup at one hand and the other fixing his hair, he entered his bedroom to find Nagisa biting his pen and looking intensely at the page before him. Was he working again?

Nagisa looked up and saw Rei approaching him; his stomach ached painfully of what was to come.

"Rei, is that-"

"What are you writing?"

"Oh...I was writing a goodbye note, but I got carried away and stared writing all my feelings into the page...page and a half, actually."

Nagisa looked away from his page and stared over Rei's shoulder out of awkwardness. "Look, I'm going to go back home and...if you want, we can just forget-"

"I love you, too."

Nagisa's face reacted in shock, staring into Rei's eyes with surprise. Rei carefully placed the steaming cup down, took Nagisa's face with both of his hands and pulled their faces close for a kiss.

In between kisses, Rei asked, "Can I ask you a favor?"

"What?"

"Can you read out loud what you wrote? I won't be able to, anyways..."