"Oji-san, I'm headed to bed!" The young teacher decided her family celebration had gone on long enough. But after she was asked to be a teacher at Shirokin once again, why wouldn't she enjoy herself? As excited as she was, she knew when enough was enough and had decided to call it a day.

She reached her bedroom of the large household complex after a short trip to the bathroom and a change of clothes. She had stripped out of her trademark tracksuit and was now quite aware of how late it was. She barely stifled a yawn as she crawled across the soft surface readying herself for the sleep she was sure would come. Snuggling under the covers, she shut her eyes softly, happy no alarm would wake her up in the morning. For today had been graduation and that, of course, meant no school tomorrow.

The dim light that glowed through the crack under her bedroom door finally shut off signaling what Yankumi assumed was the last of the clan turning in for bed. A full two hours after she had first laid down, she was still lying beneath the warm blanket positioned comfortably beneath them. Despite following the nightly routine, there she was - still up at nearly three in the morning - staring at the ceiling. For a long while, she wasn't sure what was keeping her awake. Normally, she would pass out in seconds of her head hitting the pillow and dream blissfully until morning. But this time, she couldn't quite clear her mind.

"This is all his fault!" She sat up, now sitting facing the door from her position in bed. Her eyes were fixated on a spot invisible to see in the dark and she was breathing heavily. She immediately covered her mouth after the loud outburst and waited a few moments to see if anyone had heard. Satisfied with the silence, she slowly returned to her original pose still as exhausted as she was when she got into bed. As she laid there looking up into the dark she gave out a long sigh. She wasn't quite sure what she was more upset about; the thought that one stupid line could throw off her entire sleeping pattern or the fact that she blamed her lack of sleep on the boy.

Gripping loosely at his midsection, the young man slumped into his singly occupied apartment and shut the door behind him. He hadn't been sure how long he had sat there on the side of the road thinking about what he had done but as sunset fell, he decided to take refuge at the local arcades with some of his classmates. Finally, it was a little after midnight and he decided the day was done. A spectacular graduation day, indeed.

Despite all the fun he had with his buddies, his bruised abdomen still pained him. She hadn't gone easy on the punch. He chuckled to himself as he applied a makeshift ice bag to his wound.

"Well it wouldn't be Yamaguchi if she did." He laid back slowly, collapsing slightly on his couch careful to not cause himself any further pain.

"I wonder if she's even really thinking about what I said."

He decided against the shower, figuring the hot water wouldn't help the injury and hauled himself across the small flat after resting his now less sore abdomen for an hour. He cast his jacket onto the nearby chair before carefully removing his white shirt underneath. The bruise had begun to change color and he winced at the sight. In her defense, he had tried to kiss her without warning. He continued to undress before slipping into bed dressed in his typical sleepwear. He turned over on his side only to stop short and lay flat back down after a sharp pain shot through his body. In his defense, he had done so right after a confession. You think she would've seen it coming. In his sigh, a smile found its way to his lips. He glanced over to the armchair where his forgotten stiff collar jacket was casually sprawled. At the very least, he was no longer her student, which meant she would have to trouble herself finding another excuse to refuse his advances.

'It wouldn't fun if it were too easy, after all.'

Shining her cell phone upwards, she began counting the panels on the ceiling. She had gotten to 112 when she noticed a stain.

'How the hell does someone stain the ceiling?' Yankumi had been laying there trying to bore herself to sleep if nothing else, but his words still haunted her. She couldn't blame herself. She hadn't seen it coming at all. Apparently everyone else did, though, and so there she was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

'At first I was sure I never thought of him like that, but Fujiyama's words have me all screwed up!' She tossed in bed.

"Come on now, whenever you needed company, or a shoulder to cry on, who did you call?"

She couldn't respond at the time and headed home the long way as to not pass the love-struck boy on the way back. She hated it mostly because she knew the answer. How many times had she run to the rooftop just to seek his company? How often had she called him to assist her in her schemes? For goodness sake they even walked home with each other frequently.

'It's my fault. I can't believe I didn't notice the signs!' But even she knew she could be quite dense.

'Even in Hokkaido!' When she had looked to him for advice he had snubbed her claiming her love life wasn't something to discuss with a student.

"I have come to rely on you so much I forget you're my student, sometimes."

Her face flushed heavy as she recalled the sentence. How could she have not realized what she had said! After finally calming down, she collected her thoughts and tried thinking about it all again. She concluded he must have been mistaken. Even with their less than teacher-student relationship, was love the correct word?

'He's just overreacting. He's never properly dated or had relations with a woman before according to Kuma and them. He's probably just confused. Yeah, that's it! Confused! After all, I am Yankumi. How could he l-love me? I'm his teacher! Yeah, He can't go from Yankumi to love. That's just ridiculous.' She thought back to a conversation she overheard between Ucchi and the rest of the circle. It was after one of their classmates had doodled a 'sexy' picture of the teacher on the whiteboard, and she had responded cheerfully to it.

"Come on man, don't even joke like that!"

"I can't even pretend to think of Yankumi as a chick," Minami concurred.

"Yeah, Yankumi is Yankumi." The boys nodded in agreement at Noda's words.

"Exactly."

At the time, she had been furious she had been written off by her students as undesirable, but now she was grateful for the reassurance. Her uncertainty faded away and she decided that it was all a misunderstanding. He would figure it out soon enough and they go back to Sawada and Yankumi, a great student teacher pair! She smiled at the thought. Now that she wasn't so confused, she was excited. When it looked like things would become awkward between the two, she was worried she wouldn't be able to talk to him like she used to. If things became complicated, she couldn't have called him out anymore let alone invited him over! Knowing he would still be by her side but her pounding heart at ease for the first time that night.

Feeling like she could finally fall asleep, she snuggled, getting comfortable before taking in a couple of deep breaths and closing her eyes.

'Sawada and Yankumi.' Her brows furrowed at the line she had stated earlier. Determined to ignore it and get to sleep, she kept her eyes tightly shut. But what was it? What was bothering her about that phrase? She clenched her eyes tighter and tried to push the thought away again, telling herself that she had finally straightened it all out. After agreeing she had simply overreacted and chastising her own thoughts, she got comfortable again, confident she had it all worked out in her mind. She didn't even stop her thoughts from drifting to the boy who had managed to keep her awake for half the night.

"Fight me, Yamaguchi."

"Yamaguchi you are seriously more trouble than you're worth."

"Yamaguchi you did that problem wrong."

"Bullshit, Yamaguchi show me where I lost two points?"

"Are you crazy, Yamaguchi? You could've been killed!"

"What am I going to do with you, Yamaguchi?"

"Yamaguchi!"

"Yamaguchi?"

"Yamaguchi."

'Yamaguchi.'

Her entire face blushed a crimson red and her eyes slightly bulged. She had finally figured out why the phrase has felt so foreign. In their two years of knowing each other, had he ever called her Yankumi? Even without trying to recall every moment of every day they spent together, she knew the answer.

"I love you and want to be with you, always."

She threw the comforter over her head and squeezed herself into a ball underneath it. Her faced still hadn't returned to normal and she was grateful that day had been graduation and she didn't need to go into work in the morning. Her conclusion, now proven false, was no longer valid which meant she was back to square one. With a new wave of embarrassment and uncertainty, she was sure she wouldn't be falling asleep tonight.