Ritsu Sakuma was going senile.

Well, at least he thought he was–perhaps it was his old age.

I mean, seventeen and still in his second year at Yumenosaki? Man, he might as well just go live in a home or something.

Now, his senility. Recently, he'd started hearing a friend of his yelling into his ear as he slept.

"RITSU!"

He thought this was a very strange phenomenon for two reasons: one, he rarely dreams while he's asleep (which is the only other possibility that doesn't have to do with deteriorating mental health), and two, he's never had a problem like this before. Ritsu fancied himself quite the healthy boy–sorry, old man–and his suddenly hearing things was, very, very confusing.

"Ritsu, get up already, damn it!"

Yes, very confusing indeed.

"Ritsu, for the love of God, we're going to be late for class!"

Oh well. It's not like the voice was going to get him to wake up. His new sleeping space was comfy. The academy did a wonderful job of maintaining the garden. He'd never felt a patch of grass this soft.

"Do I have to do everything for you?" groaned Mao Isara, forcefully pulling one of Ritsu's eyes open. Ritsu grunted nonchalantly.

"Five minutes before I realize you're gone, half an hour searching the entire academy for you and your lazy ass, and another fifteen minutes trying to wake you up! That's almost an entire hour, Ritsu! Do you even care about your grades?" snapped Mao.

"No," replied Ritsu, who hadn't moved a single inch.

Mao sighed, exasperated. He pulled his hand away from Ritsu's eye, letting it snap back shut, and sat himself on top of Ritsu's stomach.

For a while, it was silent between them. Just Mao scowling at the sculpted hedges, Ritsu pretending to sleep, and the almost mocking tinkle of the fountain in the background. Finally, Mao spoke up.

"Eat more," he commanded, poking Ritsu's cheek. "You're too skinny."

Ritsu raised a pale hand up and tugged on the collar of Mao's blazer in reply. He cracked a single eye open and blew a bit of air from his lips.

"You're one to talk. Your butt's really bony–I can feel it through my sweater. Do some squats or something."

"Sh-shut up! If I do squats, you have to do them, too."

"No. That's too much work."

Mao huffed and grabbed Ritsu's hand, clutching it tightly. He stood up and forcefully tugged Ritsu upright as well. The dark-haired boy reluctantly obliged to his actions, drowsily staggering to keep his balance.

"Is standing up too much work for you, too?" grumbled Mao. His grip on Ritsu's hand never loosened. The other's gaze slipped over to where they were intertwined–the sight brought the ghost of an amused smile to his face.

"Most things are too much work for me," mumbled Ritsu, squeezing Mao's hand. Mao immediately ripped his hand away and flushed red, but otherwise didn't acknowledge the gesture.

Once again, there was a bout of awkward silence. Ritsu welcomed it. He could clearly sense Mao's discomfort through the thick atmosphere, and he thought it was just about the funniest thing he's seen all day.

Mao, on the other hand, wanted to crawl into a hole and escape. He opened his mouth to speak, mostly for his own sake, but was suddenly interrupted by Ritsu.

"Let's go to the light music club room."

Mao frowned. He really did not want to go to the light music club room, partly because classes were still in session and that hard-ass teacher–Kunugi, was it?–would be patrolling the hallways like a hawk, and partly because Ritsu's older brother was the club's president. Personally, Mao didn't mind Rei Sakuma–he was a weird guy, and a little creepy at times, but he could tolerate him. Ritsu, however, could not.

"Why do you want to go there?" questioned Mao, underlying suspicion in his tone of voice. Ritsu shrugged.

"It's comfy. There's a coffin in there, and I don't think my brother would mind my using it," he said. He stretched his arms and began to stroll away, his little ahoge bouncing on top of his head. For a second, Mao couldn't take his eyes off of it. He stood there, his gaze frozen on the single strand of hair as it moved with Ritsu's stride, before coming to his senses and dashing after him.

"Wait, so the only reason you want to go there is to find a better sleeping place? Are you serious?" he snapped, grabbing Ritsu's shoulder and tugging him back. Ritsu glanced down at his touch and then back up at him meekly.

"Yeah, probably. You can wake me up when people start coming in," he said. With that, he slipped his hand around Mao's wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and kept walking.

"Wait, what are you doing? I've dawdled long enough, Ritsu! We should both be in class right now, and–wait, this isn't even the way to the clubroom!"

No matter what Mao said or did, he could not overpower Ritsu's iron determination to do absolutely nothing productive. Not even his mentioning that they looked like a couple did anything–to this, Ritsu just chuckled and said, "Maybe we are?"

Eventually, the loyal student council treasurer shut himself up and accepted his fate.

"Ritsu."

"Hmm? What is it, Mao?"

"You said you were going to sleep."

"I did? I don't remember that."

Mao clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles were white.

"Yes, Ritsu. You did."

Ritsu paused for a second, tossing the seal of a whipped cream can to the side. "Well, that's a shame, 'cause I'm not going to anymore."

Mao sighed so loudly and so gruffly that he was sure everyone in the building could hear him.

Back in the garden, when Mao had mentioned that they weren't heading in the right direction, Ritsu was perfectly aware of that–he wanted to go to the kitchen first.

Why did he want to go to the kitchen?

To get twenty cans of whipped cream from the refrigerator. Needless to say, Mao was thoroughly pissed at this particular antic, especially since Ritsu had expected him to carry all of them. With some negotiation from Mao's side, he had managed to get Ritsu to split the load under one condition–Mao had to help Ritsu execute whatever plan he had up his sleeve.

Mao, in a moment of frustration, had immediately agreed. Now, as he watched the older boy eagerly ripping the cans open, he really, really wished he hadn't.

"Why do you want to fill the coffin with whipped cream again?" hissed Mao, a distinct edge to his voice. Ritsu flicked a seal over to his feet, a mischievous glint in his eyes. Mao duly noted that an expression like that was very rare, in Ritsu's case–so rare that Mao couldn't remember the last time he'd looked like that. He pushed the thought aside.

"It'll be funny," mused Ritsu. He tossed a can to Mao, who reluctantly caught it so as to not make any noise if it dropped onto the floor.

"It will not be funny," retorted Mao. "Rei will find out, and if he's a sensible person, he'll report us, and we'll get into trouble. Besides, I don't think that's nearly enough whipped cream to fill an entire coffin, anyway? What're you gonna do, cover the pillow with it?"

Ritsu tilted his head to the side as if contemplating. Mao soon added his mocking suggestion to his mental list of things he regretted.

"That's...a really good idea, Mao," mumbled Ritsu. "I could cover the pillow, and it'll get all over his hair..."

Ritsu pressed down on the nozzle and began to spray the whipped cream.

Mao suddenly, without thinking, pounced onto him.

The two boys wrestled on the floor, both of them trying to grab the can of whipped cream from the other as they fought. The white substance flew everywhere–Mao swore that he had felt some of it go down his shirt as they rolled around. Their battle eventually made its way towards the other cans, and an even bigger mess was made as they crashed into them: whipped cream smeared across the floor and the stands of instruments, painting the side of the coffin and ruining both of their school uniforms.

Mao shoved his hand into Ritsu's face, hoping to block his view, yet he only succeeded in pulling his bangs up.

Ritsu had a genuine smile on his face–another expression that was so rare for Ritsu to have that Mao couldn't help ceasing his struggle to gape. It wasn't as if Ritsu never smiled. On the contrary, he did quite a bit, but Mao was one of two people who noticed that a certain aspect was missing from it, the other being Rei. Both of them had observed that Ritsu's smile lacked some sort of lightheartedness, the kind of joyful feeling that people gave off when they were truly, irrefutably happy.

However, now it was apparent, and Mao could've sworn he had felt his heart skip a beat.

Mao's opponent took no notice of his strange behavior and pinned him to the ground triumphantly, raising the can of whipped cream to his mouth...

Then the door to the club room opened, and everyone froze.

Ritsu's first thought was, dear God, it had better not be Rei. Anyone catching their immature little spat would be embarrassing, but Ritsu immediately decided that his brother would be the absolute worst possibility.

Well, maybe not as bad as the Aoi twins.

Hinata and Yuta stared blankly at Mao and Ritsu. Yuta's hand, which was holding the door, dropped to his side like a dead weight, and the door slammed shut. Mao and Ritsu's awkward position didn't really help the situation–neither boy would have put it past the twins to make some rather nasty suggestive comment about it.

In a blatant attempt to crush the tense atmosphere, Ritsu pressed on the nozzle of the can and filled Mao's open mouth with whipped cream. Mao's brow furrowed, and he soon broke into a fit of coughing. He seemed to be trying to simultaneously swallow and spit out the whipped cream, which was very difficult to do while being practically sat on by a good friend. Ritsu showed no sign of moving–he was having a wonderful time blankly staring the twins down.

An amused smile slowly stretched across Hinata's face. "I didn't know you guys were into that stuff!"

Ritsu slowly rolled off of Mao, who looked thankful, although it was hard to tell through his hacking. Ritsu briefly winked at him, and Mao was confused as to why until he caught wind of Ritsu's following statement:

"I didn't know, either. He just suddenly jumped on me, and then things happened."

Mao screeched in denial.

"Consent, Mao!" scolded Yuta, who stomped over to Mao and very messily performed the Heimlich maneuver on him. The poor guy made a sound akin to a dying rat.

As Yuta handled Mao's well-being, Hinata casually strolled over to Ritsu and bent over to whisper something into his ear.

"So, did it work?"

Ritsu shrugged. "I don't know, did it work?"

Hinata giggled. "...Well, at least you had fun, right?"

Ritsu huffed. "It would've worked if you hadn't come over so early."

Hinata playfully pushed Ritsu's shoulder and didn't say another word. Both twins had admittedly been trying to set up Mao and Ritsu for a while. Surprisingly, Ritsu was the one to catch on. He ended up going along with one of their ploys, only because it was an excuse to bother Rei in some way.

However, as Ritsu watched Mao in all of his whipped cream-stained, worried glory, he reluctantly wondered if he really did harbor something akin to feelings for his friend.

His gaze hardened. Even if there was something there, he'd put it away for another time.

"See you tomorrow, Mao," said Ritsu standing up and walking towards the door. Mao sounded as if he wanted to say something, but Ritsu didn't hear.

He was making a plan of his own.

an:

i didn;t proofread this and i don't even ship ritsumao please play ensemble stars