"Seriously guys! Get the fuck out! I mean it. "

"Ok!" Tenma called back, not sure if he was even heard over the chatter of all the other loitering party-goers. They all surely heard Isozaki's last six warnings, but they were either too drunk to realize the party was over, or didn't care all together.

"Come on, Captain." He placed his hands on his senpai's shoulders. "We have to leave."

Shindou chuckled, his face as red as a tomato. He leaned his head on his hand limply, his curls swaying a little. "Tenma," he grinned. "I have a boyfriend..."

"Yeah, I know. I gotta find him too," Tenma said to himself, looking back at the crowd of tipsy people. He had to find Kirino, Tsurugi, and Fei too, but Shindou worried him the most. He was the main one warning everyone beforehand not to drink too much, and yet whenever Tenma turned around, he saw his senpai with yet another drink in his hands. Even though it took way longer for him to give in than the rest of their friends, once he had one there was no stopping him. And whenever he asked, he was simply waved off with an "I'm fine."

"I'm fine," Shindou had told him, literally waving him off.

"Ok, but it's just that you said you'd be the one to drive us home and—"

"I said I'm fine," Shindou repeated, with a smile that really meant "don't ask me again."

So, deciding against bothering him anymore, he went to check on the rest of his friends. They weren't any better. Fei seemed to be having a good time, but Tenma was unsure if anyone with him was enjoying themselves as well. Anyone trying to interact with him would receive a sharp "Fuck off," or even worse, a threat. Sometimes Fei could be very unpleasant, Tenma remembered that from long ago.

Kirino wasn't as bad, but Tenma was very shocked to find that he had been crying. As many years as he has known the pink haired boy, he has never once seen him cry. When he inquired as to why, he was told something about the snacks. He wanted chocolate flavor and there was only vanilla. Tenma still wasn't very sure about it, the reply was very incoherent.

"That's why you're upset?" Tenma asked.

"Yeah...," Kirino said solemnly, looking away from his kouhai. Before Tenma could say anything else, Kirino was called away, excitingly yelling "me~" when someone asked who wanted to participate in another game.

Tsurugi didn't behave much differently, but Tenma was still worried when he found him in a drinking competition with Hakuryuu. Well, more like Hakuryuu was in competition with himself, assuming Tsurugi had agreed to it and wasn't just rolling his eyes and completely ignoring him after a few drinks. When Tenma looked closer, he saw the other's eyes were red and droopy, so he didn't doubt he was drunk just like the rest of them.

It was pretty clear to Tenma he was the only one who didn't give in to any alcohol, and now all of his friends were his responsibility.

"Seriously, Captain, we have to go. I'm not taking no this time." He only pleaded.

"Can you tell Isozaki to shut his fat fucking mouth for a second? It's annoying as hell."

The other boy was still telling everyone to leave. It was past two am, and none of them intended of staying that long.

Tenma frowned, he wasn't getting through to him. But before he could plead again, he heard Kirino shouting.

"I told you already, I'm not a girl!" He jumped up from his seat, yelling at a guy he was talking with. That made Tenma's job a bit easier.

"There's Kirino-senpai," Tenma turned back to Shindou. "Stay here OK? I'll be right back." The other hummed.

But before he could get too far...

"Wait, Tenma."

He turned back, clearly in a rush. "Yeah?"

...

Shindou smiled. "Come here."

"No! I'm not gonna 'come here' again!" Tenma turned away quickly, a tiny blush on his cheeks.

When he made it over to his senpai he grabbed his hand, probably in an effort to prevent him from escaping.

"Kirino-senpai, it's time to leave." While he didn't expect any difficulties, he was still silently hoping he would just cooperate.

"Good, I don't wanna be here anymore anyway," Kirino brushed his bangs out of his face, looking irritated. "Because if I get called a girl one more fucking time I'm gonna kill someone." He glared at his company who realized it might have been a good idea to leave. "Do I look like a girl to you, Tenma?"

"Uhhh..." Tenma didn't know how to answer that nor did he care enough at the moment to come up with one. "A-anyway, can you get Shindou-senpai? He's not listening to anything I say. And have you seen Fei?"

Kirino looked up in thought. "Last time I saw him he said he was going to the pool."

Tenma looked confused, the one room they were in was literally the entire party. "There's no pool here."

"Oh, then I dunno where he is."

Tenma groaned. This atmosphere was very unpleasant and he just wanted to leave as quickly as possible. There was no way he wanted to go searching for Fei, even getting across the room was a struggle.

"Don't worry I got him." They both turned to Tsurugi who was dragging Fei with him. Fei looked entirely upset, drying his hair off with a towel. Tenma wondered what he got into. "Come on, let's go. Shindou!"

"Yeah?" Shindou looked up quickly, still grinning. He looked like he could fall asleep at any moment. Kirino walked over to him quickly.

"Put that down!"

It may have taken a while, but eventually Tenma succeeded in getting his party back together. He sighed, they could finally leave this awful place. He was sleepy anyway, he wasn't used to staying up that late in the first place. He was looking toward to getting some well deserved rest—

"Hey, who's gonna drive us home?"

They decided to rest on a river bank while Tenma figured out their problem. The other four were pretty much useless in their state anyway. They sat in the grass next to each other, Shindou laying his head in Kirino's lap. He played with his boyfriend's pink hair while the other smiled back, occasionally leaving kisses on his nose.

Tenma was behind them all, pacing back and forward while scrolling through names in his phone. There had to be someone willing to pick them up so late. It was times like this when Tenma actually wished he had learned how to drive. He never really had to, Tsurugi, Shindou and Kirino would all always give him rides whenever he needed. They had always told Tenma he should learn, it's an essential skill. Only now did he realize why.

"Hey Taiyou...," Tenma smiled nervously as if his orange haired friend could see it through the phone. "Can I ask you for something?" He proceeded to explain their entire situation but before he could finish, Taiyou interrupted him.

"You're in the hospital again!?" It seemed like that boy was always hurting himself somehow.

Tenma pouted while listening to his apologies. As many times as Taiyou said he'd do anything to help him, he was the first person Tenma thought would surely be able to help him. "No, it's OK, it's not your fault." And with that the conversation ended, and he went back to scrolling through names.

He really hoped he could find someone to help them fast. Not only did they foolishly go out to a party on a school night, but honestly, being around his friends when they were intoxicated made Tenma pretty... uncomfortable. Fei was very rude, Kirino was unusually emotional, and Shindou was irresponsible. Tsurugi may have been calm, but he was just as unpredictable as the rest of them. That's what made Tenma so upset, but that's exactly why he needed to stay with them.

He winced when he read a certain name on his phone, knowing that she would be very upset to be woken up at 2:21 in the morning, but he had to try anyway.

"Uh, hey Midori," he remained cautious.

"Tenma, it's two in the morning. Is something wrong?" Tenma felt bad immediately. She sounded dead tired but she also tried her best to be patient with him as he explained the problem.

"...and well, all the others are too drunk to drive so I was wondering—"

"ARE YOU SERIOUS!?" All four of his friends perked up at the sound of her voice. Every word could be heard loud and clear. "I am not going out at 2 in the morning to pick up five drunk dumbasses who got themselves stranded! Especially on a school night! You're not going to waste my gas, you better start walking! Like, are you guys five years old?! I don't even like Isozaki!"

She continued on for a bit until finally hanging up, leaving Tenma right back where he started but in a worse mood.

"Look, Tenma, this is stupid," Tsurugi spoke up. "I'll just drive us home, it's no big deal."

"No! You can't drive because you drank too much and now you're drunk!"

"Tenma, seriously, I'm sick of this shit, let's just—"

"NO! PEOPLE WHO DRINK AND DRIVE END UP DEAD!" Tsurugi sat back down if only to stop the other from yelling. He knew that very well, he must have just been too irritated to care. He wished he could call his older brother, but Yuuichi had long gone away too college. He didn't really wanna see the disappointed look on his face anyway. Behind him he could hear Tenma speaking to yet another poor soul he's woken up so late. "Well, uh, yadda yadda yadda..."

Fei lay in the grass staring up at the night sky, his eyebrows furrowed. "Wouldn't even have this problem if our fucking designated driver didn't decide to get drunk off his fucking ass."

"I forgot~"

"Leave him alone," Kirino defended him regardless.

"No, I won't. The entire way over here he was nagging us about not drinking too much and how he didn't even wanna go and now look at him." He sat up to look at Shindou. "You're supposed to be the smart one!"

When Shindou didn't respond, Fei lay back down in the grass, still pouting.

"He's right you know," he heard Tsurugi next to him.

"I don't need your help," if he was looking he would have noticed Tsurugi's glare.

Kirino looked down at his sleepy friend. "Can't you call one of your maids to pick us up? Like in one of the limos?" He smiled at the idea, riding in a limo with his friends.

"Yeah, and then I get my ass fried when she tells my parents." He sat up to look at Kirino. "You know, I'm not the type of person to go out and party all night and get shitfaced drunk and all that stupid shit. I'm not one of those idiots." Shindou paused, staring at the other. After a moment, Kirino saw him frown, his lips quivering before planting his face back into his lap. "I am one of those idiots." Kirino stroked his gray-brown hair for comfort.

"I see..." Tenma sighed, slumping his shoulders. "Nah, that's OK, thanks anyway, Kita." After hanging up he looked back down at his phone. Why couldn't Aoi have passed her driver's test the last six times she took it? And why couldn't Akane's parents allow her out in the middle of the night to pick up five drunk boys and take them home? He wouldn't give up, but at that point he had called everyone he knew who could help them out, and barely even half of them picked up the phone. Well, almost everyone.

"Heheh... I was bad."

Kirino sighed.

Tenma stared at his phone at the names of his former soccer coaches. He felt it to be incredibly disrespectful to ask one of them for help with something like this, but at the rate he was going, they would all end up walking home, and that would take all night.

He completely avoided the name "Endou Mamoru". He was sure they could all agree that he was the last person they wanted to see them in that state. Even if he didn't judge, Tenma would never be able to shake the feeling he disappointed his mentor.

It didn't take him long to rule out "Kidou Yuuto" either. He would probably leave them out there as punishment. So that left "Gouenji Shuuya". Tenma couldn't picture how he would react. Of course he would be mad but... mad enough to yell or not help them at all? He didn't think so but that was a possibility.

Regardless, he dialed the number and waited.

"Gouenji-san! We need your help."

"What's going on?" he sounded like he just woke up too. Great...

"Well, you see..." he wasn't going to lie, but how could he make it sound not as bad as it was? "Me and Tsurugi... and Kirino and Shindou... and Fei, we were all out and..."

"Are you guys safe?" he interrupted.

"Yeah we're fine! It's just that... we were at a party and, they all kinda drank too much and got a little bit tipsy, so..."

"What's that got to do with waking me up in the middle of the night?"

"Y-yeah," Tenma chuckled nervously. He was getting irritated. "I was wondering if you could, you know... drive your super cool sports car over here and uh, pick us up?"

Click!

...after a moment, Tenma pouted again. "Well, at least he didn't say no..."

After sighing yet again he simply went over and sat with his friends, between Kirino and Fei. He wouldn't give up, but being rejected so many times in a row put a damper on his mood. He simply rested for a bit, listening to his friends' conversation.

"You know that shitty guitar he had in his room?" Tsurugi explained.

Shindou furrowed his eyebrows. "...why would I know about anything he has in his room?"

"Point is: I trashed it with the rest of his room."

"For what?"

"You know I don't like that guy. That's what he gets for trying to break people's ankles."

"Wait, what?" Fei perked up. He never heard of that before.

"That was like... 4 years ago, you just wanted to be petty."

"And what do you mean you don't like him?" Kirino pitched in. "It was your idea to crash his party."

"So I could trash his shit."

Well, nothing they could do about it now.

...

Kirino looked over at Tenma, who was resting his cheek on his knees, looking down at the dark blue grass. "You OK?" his voice was soft.

Tenma simply nodded. His eyes were very droopy, Kirino knew he wasn't used to staying up this late.

"Look..." Tenma looked at his senpai and saw him staring at the night sky. When he looked up, he saw it was clear, and several clusters of shining stars were visible. He couldn't exactly remember the last time he stopped to notice.

In fact, he couldn't remember a time he and his friends actually did something together quietly like this. It was probably because they were all dead tired but still, it was nice. They all forgot about time for a little bit and just relaxed. If they weren't careful, the sound of the crickets would lull them to sleep.

Kirino found the moon particularly interesting. It was a half moon that night, but it still lit up the sky brilliantly. He only looked away when he heard Shindou murmur his name. He leaned foward so he could listen, their noses almost touching.

Tenma glanced over at them for a second, watching them whisper to each other. He couldn't hear a single word they said but whatever it was made them both blush and smile gently. When Tenma looked over at Fei, he seemed to be in a better mood as well, laying in the grass with his hands behind his head. A faint smile was on his lips. Tsurugi looked calm too, he didn't even question why Tenma was staring at him like he normally would.

Tenma smiled. For a moment, he forgot all about trying to get home. That was until his phone vibrated in his pocket. The dim screen said "Gouenji Shuuya".

"Gouenji-san?" Tenma answered, a bit of hope in his voice.

"Where are you?"

Tenma stuttered. Straight to the point, huh? "We're at the riverbank..." he began describing their location. Right after Gouenji gave him an "I'm on my way," before abruptly hanging up again.

...

He lay down in the grass, still mesmerized by the night sky. "Gouenji is coming," he said calmly.

They all waited for him together, silently, no longer in any rush.