*waves* So, umm... it's been like a year since I've posted. Sorry. I've got a ton of little oneshots taking up hard drive space; I will have to post some of those soon. I just never think about it. - . - ;;

I was surprised by the appalling lack of Kekkaishi fanfiction (read: Yoshine fluff) here on FFnet, and because I love the series (and Yoshine) so much, I decided to post a little post-manga oneshot. Nothing special, but it's something, at least. Imagine this set slightly in the future. Don't read if you haven't finished the end of the last chapter because that's where this idea came from. (Also, forgive me for all the math references. Skip over 'em if you wish.)

And, of course, I don't own Kekkaishi. Please don't sue me.

Math Lessons

Yoshimori hated math.

Okay, so he hated Japanese too. And English. And history. And science. And geography. And really, come to think of it, there wasn't a subject he was particularly fond of, so he kind of hated them all. But he especially hated math. And it was only because he loved Tokine so much that he finally, after a month of listening to her beg, decided to allow her to tutor him.

Now he was second-guessing his decision. And getting a headache.

"No, no, no, Yoshimori!" Tokine shouted, obviously frustrated. "I told you to solve for either x or y and substitute the result into the other equation!"

"And I told you that sounds like a foreign language!" Yoshimori snapped back, though not quite as loudly as Tokine. "Are you really sure this is 'simple' algebra?"

"Of course it is! Want to see my homework?" Tokine challenged, and Yoshimori backed down, still grumbling to himself a bit. Tokine regained her composure and pointed at one of the equations. Yoshimori's "solution" read "6x + 3y = 24.6," as opposed to its original reading, "3y + 6x = 24.6." At least he seemed to know rearranging the variables wouldn't affect his answer.

"How would you solve for x here?" Tokine asked, trying to sound patient and succeeding to a degree.

Yoshimori stared blankly at the page. "I dunno… divide by six?"

"That's the second step," she informed him. "What do you think the first step might be?"

Yoshimori shrugged. "Tokine, I really think you're overestimating my math abilities here. Not only was I not very good at math to begin with, but I had a shikigami sent to school in my place for over a month. My teacher has pretty much completely given up on me. Maybe you should too."

Tokine put her head in her hands and heaved a long, heavy sigh. She turned to him a moment later and smiled.

"Yoshimori… do you remember that time I told you to jump between the rocks on that creek?"

Yoshimori nodded. "I fell in," he said, embarrassed and a little bit accusatorially. Tokine giggled at the memory, and Yoshimori narrowed his eyes. "What does this have to do with -"

"You tried, didn't you?"

"Yeah. And I failed."

"But you remember the next time?"

Still clueless but grateful for the respite from thinking about math, Yoshimori answered, "Yeah, I was able to do it the next day."

Tokine smiled triumphantly. "Right!" she declared, patting him energetically on the shoulder. "That's the kind of person you are, Yoshimori - you may not always get things right on the first try, but you are always willing to try again. So let's go back to this problem."

"Oh." Yoshimori was stuck between flattery at the compliment (… if that was what it was) and disappointment that Tokine still expected him to do math. "Well… this isn't really the same thing…."

Tokine rolled her eyes. "Looks like you need a little motivation," she announced unnecessarily. "Well, I guess it can't be helped." She scooted closer to Yoshimori, so that their legs touched, and wrapped her arm around his waist. Yoshimori stiffened and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Tokine just smiled and rested her chin on his shoulder, which made Yoshimori immediately lose his control with a half-stifled scream.

"T-Tokine," he spluttered, "you're too close. I can't concentrate."

"Mmm… that's too bad," Tokine said into his ear, barely above a whisper. "Because I was going to kiss you when you figured out these problems."

Yoshimori groaned. "Tokineeeee, don't do this to me," he pleaded, but she pressed her cheek against his, and he could feel her cheekbones rise into a smile as his own face heated into a flush.

"Repeat after me," Tokine commanded. "Subtract 3y from both sides of the equation."

"S… subtract 3y from both sides of the equation," Yoshimori said in a daze.

"Now do it."

Yoshimori turned his head toward her and almost caught her lips with his, but she was too quick. "After," she chided him. "Subtract 3y from both sides now."

Yoshimori muttered some things under his breath that Tokine chose to ignore. "I don't get it," he said. "It's like the same equation, only it's now 6x = 24.6 - 3y."

"You're getting there," Tokine encouraged. "Now you divide both sides by six, like you had said earlier."

After a minute, Yoshimori said triumphantly, "So x is equal to 4.1 - 1/2y!" He paused for a minute. "How the hell is that helpful?"

"There are two equations," Tokine reminded him. "Wherever you see x in the second equation, plug in 4.1 - 1/2y."

Yoshimori gasped softly. "Oh," he said. "That's how you do it." As Tokine had expected, once it was properly explained to him, Yoshimori figured out the rest of the problem easily. Not thirty seconds later he jotted down the correct value for x. "So now… I use this x that I found to find y?"

"You've got it," she said proudly, and soon Yoshimori produced the correct answer to both variables. He circled them neatly with his pencil and turned to Tokine to give her a triumphant grin. "I understand now," he said excitedly. "Maybe you should be a teacher."

"And maybe there's still hope for you as an architect." She grinned. She had known all along that all it would take was a little motivation and encouragement. His grades didn't reflect his true intelligence; they only reflected his lack of effort. Slowly but surely, she would change that.

Yoshimori, who had been smiling stupidly at Tokine with that lovesick expression she had grown to love, suddenly seemed to remember her promise. "So are you… are we going to…."

"Kiss?" Tokine finished, leaning in close to Yoshimori. Their noses touched, and she could feel his breath warm against her skin. "Do you want that?"

"Yeah," Yoshimori answered, and he closed his eyes and leaned closer, closer -

Tokine's voice came from entirely too far away. "Then you'd better hurry up with the rest of these," she suggested, and he opened his eyes to see her sitting straight up, pointing to his math textbook. "Your homework is numbers one through twenty-seven. You've only done number one."

Yoshimori groaned. "I hate math," he declared frustratedly, and Tokine just smiled.

A/N: Sorry for any mistakes, OOCness, etc. Hope you enjoyed. Review!