Three
Answers
A soft huff of annoyance intruded upon Mamoru's concentration and he glanced up from his book at the puffed cheeks and narrowed eyes of his girlfriend as she glowered at the text in front of her. "Why do I even bother?" she muttered, "It's not like I'm gonna get an A."
Mamoru knew Usagi backwards and forwards, had loved her in two lifetimes and would stay by her side for thousands of years, but sometimes he truly did not understand her. His Usa, who he had watched cling tenaciously to hope when everything seemed lost, who had faced down demons beyond the imagination of most people and never, ever gave up, would throw her hands up and say uncle at the smallest challenge in school. He knew that she was capable of much more than she accomplished, and he couldn't understand why she seemed to have no motivation to succeed.
Hmm… motivation.
"Let me see, Usa," he said, softly, reaching out and sliding her textbook towards himself. "Hmm, cell structure, eh?" He glanced up at her from under his bangs, watching her prod listlessly at her pencil as it rolled across the table. "What is the central part of the cell, where the chromosomes are located?"
She groaned and turned her eyes to the ceiling. "I don't know. It's all gobbledygook to me."
"Usagi," he said in the soft, warm way that he knew made her heart skip. She looked over at him and he gave her a slow, enticing smile. "Answer correctly and I'll give you a reward."
Pink tinged her cheeks as she stared at him, round-eyed. For all that they'd been together for a year now (in this lifetime, at least) and knew that they were destined to be married and have a child together, it usually took some doing on her part to get him to look at her like that. She swallowed a little. "Um… the brain?"
He shook his head, lips twitching towards a smirk. "You can do better than that, Usa. I know you've studied this."
She was lost in the endless blue of his eyes and her mouth moved seemingly of its own volition. "The nucleus," she breathed, and then looked surprised at her own answer.
Mamoru's smile widened and he leaned across the table toward her. "Yes, that's right," he practically purred before laying a very soft, warm kiss on her temple. Staying close, he continued on, his voice a pleasant rumble that made her ears tickle with pleasure. "Now, what part of the cell synthesizes protein?"
She hesitated a moment, the scent of his cologne making her feel a little dizzy as she searched her brain. "Ri… ribosomes…" she breathed at last.
Internally, Mamoru was preening at his brilliant plan. He knew she had it in her, if she had the proper incentive. "Ribosomes," he repeated, correcting her pronunciation slightly but still moving to kiss her softly just below her ear, sending goosebumps along her arms. "I knew you could do it. But can you tell me what kind of molecule makes up the cell membrane?"
She was leaning towards him, her breathing shallow and her eyes half-closed. "Phospholipids," she answered, with barely any hesitation. This earned her a kiss just at the corner of her mouth.
Their study session continued in that vein until late in the evening and when, a week later, Usagi earned an A on her quiz, Mamoru was the only one who was not surprised.
