"D..do… you want to hold hands?" Rei adjusted his red glasses and looked further into the horizon.

"w…what?" Her face turned a light shade of red at the mere thought of holding hands with him.

".. your hands, they're cold aren't they?" He adjusted his glasses once again, this time pushing them more up and to the side.

She tried to obtain a better view of his face in order to try to read what he was thinking but it was no use because his large hands were covering his face.

"uh..well," she started to say after a long pause.

"Don't even think about lying, I can tell by the way you're grasping onto your thumb like that. Your hands are cold right?" Scoffing, his mouth curved into a small smirk. Did she really think she could trick her? He thought to himself. After all, he had calculated this moment exactly.

"….yeah," her soft voice was barely audible.

There was another awkward silence in the air as they kept walking forward. Their footsteps echoed in the dark as they tried to make most of the time that they had together. Her eyes darted quickly to the right in another attempt to read his face. Rei was slightly frowning, his eyebrows pursued in thought. A myriad of questions were whizzing through his head and none of them could be answered.

Her stomach did a double somersault once she saw Rei's frowning face. Did she do something wrong? What did he want from her? Agh, just what was she supposed to do in this situation? She felt like pulling out her hair. This was stressful, too stressful. I should have known from the start this would not work out, she thought to herself. The person next to her was Rei Ryugazaki, the calculating smart, swimmer that she had admired ever since the first day of school. To her, just being next to him like this was more than enough because she knew she was not qualified to stand near him. He was someone in another league and she yearned to make it to the same level as him. If only she was smart like him, she could have easily figured out what he wanted.

To Rei it made no sense. He had already memorized the concept of "holding hands" by reading a large sum of shoujo manga. The stage was perfectly set but yet it was not happening. What had he done wrong? According to his research, a normal girl should have taken his hand by now. Had he not made it clear enough that he wanted to hold hands with her? Of course he could always say it directly… but that was too embarrassing. Unless… she was an aberration of the normal girl? Well, she was the girl he had chosen, this was as expected of her. She was a very formidable opponent. But he wouldn't lose. There must have been something that he had missed. Or maybe this thing called "dating" was like swimming? Maybe he would have to find his own way of doing it.

"we're almost there, my house is only a couple of blocks away," she spoke, breaking the silence.

"…WHAT?" Shocked, he spun around to face her.

At his sudden movement, she jumped, "huh? Is something wrong?"
"n..nothing, it's nothing!" he quickly responded and tried to create a makeshift plan B. Would he have to give up on his goal? But he had already come this far. No, he shook his head, he would do it today. He peered down to her small hand inches away from his hand. I just need to grab it, just, slowly, casually, he repeated to himself several times. I just need to, carefully, he reassured himself. With each thought, he felt more and more frustrated, as if her hand was taunting him.

"Rei-kun? What are you staring at?" At the sound of her voice, his hand retracted to where it was before.

"…" He shot a glare at her and she flinched.

"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" He shouted and his large hands closed the distance between them, inching closer and closer to her small hands, "HERE, WAS THIS SO DIFFICULT TO DO?" His hands engulfed hers and they were finally connected.

"R..Rei-kun…" staring at his small outburst, she was surprised. This side of Rei was new to her. All he wanted was to hold hands? Her curious eyes stared past his glasses and into his eyes.

Rei breathed in and out, aggravated by the situation and his face still flushed with his outburst from before. It wasn't long before he noticed she was staring at him. "s..sorry, I just, I don't know why… I apologize for my actions," he apologized, realizing what had just happened.

"here, if you don't want to I can-" The grip in his hand loosened and he tried to pull away from her, but the tiny hand held on tightly.

"No!" She exclaimed and he flinched at her assertion.

"I mean… no, it's fine like this… I want to hold hands with Rei-kun," she murmured faintly looking down.

Rei sighed softly and adjusted his glasses with his free hand. That was pretty uncool, that was exactly the opposite of how it goes in Shoujo mangas. Showing her this lame side of me, really, Rei Ryugazaki what are you doing? He said, chiding himself. But for her to push him to this extent, she was really something too wasn't she; he chuckled softly at the sight of her looking at the ground, using her hair as a curtain to hide her face.

Hearing strange sounds coming from the person next to her, she turned to face him and pouted, "what are you laughing at?"

"nothing, nothing at all," but her pouting face only made him laugh harder.

"Really, if you wanted to hold hands you could have just said so; there was no need to be so assertive!" She lashed out at him, clearly embarrassed.

He glared down at her, "I did say so! You pretended to not hear me!"

" I said yes!" She argued, "You're the one that didn't take my hand!"

"whatever! We're holding hands now aren't we?" Coincidentally, they both looked down at their connected hands and happened to make eye contact.

"ah!" They exclaimed in unison before adverting their gazes. She had turned a radiant red and peeking to the side, she had found that he was the same too.

Her heart started to race when it had finally hit her that she was holding hands with Rei, the person that she had looked up to, and the person that seemed so perfect. They were so different but yet they were struggling with the same thing. This realization suddenly warmed her heart because she felt as if they had finally found some common ground. Although this whole concept was new to the both of them, she thought if they were connected like this, there would be nothing to fear.

WHAT AM I DOING ITS SO LATE I'M SO SORRY BUT REVIEWS ARE MUCH APPRECIATED.

this may evolve into a series of oneshots... which i will update if i ever get another burst of... whatever this was. So for now, it'll stay completed. I just need to find another character to write about besides my beloved Rei.