'Sup!

So here's the update and I mentioned this in some other stories - important note in my profile. LeiaGrey, sorry, you're up for the next chapter.

Disclaimer: do I still need to put it here?

Beta'ed by aqua-empress and yes, I still have to check the spelling.

Song of the chapter: Pony (It's OK) by Erin McCarley

Oh, right, nearly forgot it. This story has almost 100 follows! I'm eternally gratefull to everybody for the support you've shown. And, by the way, previous chapter got whole 19 reviews - the most so far - thank you so very much!

Something was definitely wrong with this picture. Marco knew that he didn't know what to expect from Ace after yesterday, but he expected something. Anything! Not a shitload of nothing at all! He glared at his kouhai from the corner of his eye, checking if nothing changed into anything. Like hell it did, the idiot cheerfully led the way to the city library not bothered in the slightest, as if he didn't have his whole neck covered in red marks. Marco bit his cheek in a futile attempt to gain control over his emotions. Why was he so angry anyway? Ah, right, because he wasn't used to being ignored, especially not by the person he was supposed to be dating for a week.

Marco took a calming breath, maintaining his mask of perfect boredom. At least outside he looked normal, well, aside from glares he threw at his kouhai from time to time. And while he was at it, why the fuck was he coming along to the library? Wasn't he supposed to get home quickly just so this very thing wouldn't happen? He sighed, his common sense fighting with his desire to kick something. Or someone. And himself, while he was at it.

With another sigh Marco looked up the magnificent old building that was the city library. When he came here with Robin one time, she gave him a whole lecture about the building, but he only remembered that the building was raised early 1800. He also knew that Haruta and Izo loved playing hide-and-seek inside the library which was so big it had four storeys and two wings apart from the central part. That's without the basement.

Inside the library Marco almost walked into his kouhai when he made a sharp turn to the right heading in general direction of the old archives. To get access to them one needed to have some kind of special permission which Marco didn't, but, apparently, Ace had, using a card and a passcode to get into the south wing of the library. Since the south wing was off limits for anyone who didn't have that permit, it was Marco's first time entering it. He was almost disappointed that it looked like the rest of the library albeit a little bit dustier.

"How did you get the card?" Marco asked curiously as Ace led the way up the stairs.

"Huh? You mean you're friends with Robin and you don't have one?" Ace turned around to look at him in disbelief.

"I don't go to the library very often…" he said, slightly defensive. "Usually I study at home."

"You missed a lot," Ace shook his head at Marco and continued up the stairs. "This is the very best place to study – tons of extra material, kitchenette on the fourth floor with free coffee and a microwave plus there are only a handful of those who are here during daytime – the history nerds usually get here around half past six in the evening."

"Sounds like you come here often."

"Mostly on weekends or when my homework is threatening to bury me," Ace shrugged casually. "Or when the historical society does something interesting, like last month they had this 'night at the library' thing when they came here at night, got all dressed up and had a treasure hunt around the whole library."

"Why haven't I heard anything about it? Wouldn't there be some kind of poster announcing the event?" Marco said indignantly – it actually sounded fun and he would have participated if he knew about it.

"Oh, that wasn't a public event, only the people who were supposed to know about it knew about it," Ace raised his hand up with the permit card between his fingers with a smug grin on his face.

"What? Unfair! How do I get one?"

"You see, they have this probation period of four months when you have to come to every single meeting of the historical society during those four months. Every single one," Ace clearly enjoyed the situation, because there was no way that Marco could afford to come to every meeting with his schoolwork. After looking at his discontent face for a minute Ace added: "But, since you're my friend and since I'm allowed to bring friends with me, I can write you a line whenever they'll be having any fun events."

They finally got to the fourth floor and Ace led the way to what looked like cabins formed by moving the bookshelves. Inside those cabins were tables for four people and four chairs. All in all there were eight cabins and Ace waved to the people sitting in one cabin as they went to the very last one to their right. Ace didn't seem to plan on staying there for long, he just dumped his bag on the table and turned around.

"Where are you going?" Marco asked – he felt slightly out of place and did not want to explain to personnel who the hell he was in case anyone decided to check if he had a permit.

"Bathroom. And then to get some coffee," his kouhai answered.

"I'm coming with you – you can show me where the bathroom is," he quickly said.

"This way," Ace nodded, going back to the stairs.

They passed the stairs and a long row of bookcases until they came out to a larger place with giant windows that was used for lectures, judging by several rows of chairs and a small podium. To the left of the lecture space was the kitchenette and even from where he stood Marco could see a full coffee pot. Somehow that sight made him happier, especially after he remembered that it was free of charge.

Ace went right into a small corridor between bookshelves and a wall, turning then left and disappearing. Marco followed him curiously and found several doors with a tell-tale sign of WC on all of them. He nodded to himself and went back to the lecture hall. There he moved to explore the kitchenette, checking the cupboards for mugs and anything he could possibly use with coffee. Marco long since stopped denying that he was a caffeine junkie – a day without a morning coffee (at the very least) left him potentially dangerous to anyone who tried to talk to him. He actually tried to refrain from drinking it when he had a break from school, but after three days Haruta came to him with a mug full of coffee as a peace offering. Marco suspected that she was sent because she was a girl and that he wouldn't harm their only sister.

Filling his mug with some free coffee, Marco couldn't help but smile at the memory – after he got his peace offering and Haruta left the room, he heard her tell somebody (most likely all their brothers) that next time they should find someone else to placate the monster. He was slightly offended by the fact that he was called a monster, but he also knew that at times he had really bad temper and several of his brothers still remembered the time when that was his only mood. Apparently, that temper resurfaced with the lack of coffee.

(^_^)

Ace was hiding in the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror and feeling like Leo DiCaprio. Namely that he should have gotten an Oscar for his acting skills. The effort he put down to keep a straight face and act perfectly normal should have gotten him 'actor of the year' award. Though there was a problem – unfortunately he couldn't hide in the bathroom forever and had to come out eventually. Why he invited sempai to tag along to the library was beyond him. He knew he had his less than bright moments, but this was a whole new level.

With a sigh Ace left the bathroom and went to the kitchenette, praying to God that Marco-sempai went back to cabin they left their thing in. He had no such luck – sempai stood by the window, looking down at the street. He seemed to have already helped himself to some coffee. Ace chuckled at the sight – apparently sempai was just as bad as him, although he only drank coffee to stay awake, but that led to him drinking up to ten cups a day. Ace knew that he couldn't take some of his medicine if he drank coffee, but those pills didn't help anyway. The only thing that could successfully keep him awake was caffeine.

"What?" Marco-sempai turned to him.

"Nothing," Ace replied with a smile, muttering 'junkie' under his breath.

"Look who's talking," sempai retorted, amusement evident in his voice.

"I'm not a junkie," Ace protested. "This… is medicine," he found himself a mug and poured coffee into it.

"Right, and I'm a flying monkey," Marco replied sceptically.

"You want to see my prescription?"

"You actually have a prescription that says you're supposed to drink coffee?"

"Nope. I have one that prescribed me caffeine."

"You are serious?"

"Yup. Although the pills I got are too weak, so I drink coffee instead," Ace explained, fixing his coffee to his taste by adding milk and sugar.

"What do you have again?"

"Narcolepsy. It's actually pretty nice, gives me a valid excuse to sleep during lessons," he said, but after seeing Marco's expression he corrected himself: "Not that I can control it in any way. It is annoying as hell when it happens during tests - I have to retake them after classes."

"It's hard being you," sempai chuckled. "I wonder how you're going to work in the future."

Ace's eyebrow twitched in annoyance, despite knowing that sempai joked. He did not like to be reminded about the place he was going to work in after he was done with high school and university. Everything was decided for him, he had no choice in the matter whatsoever. Sabo was more okay with the fact that everything was decided for him, despite his constant arguments with his father, but Ace did not even have anyone to argue with. Sensing Ace's anger, Marco raised a hand in a calming gesture:

"Hey, I didn't mean to offend you - I was just joking."

"Sorry, this has nothing to do with you, I just remembered something," Ace shook his head. He shook his head again, trying to drive the unpleasant thoughts away before he snapped and took his anger out on sempai. That would neither help him nor make him feel better.

Marco-sempai nodded hesitantly, clearly unconvinced, but said nothing, choosing to follow Ace back to their cubicle. However when they passed the taken cubicle, someone called:

"Perfect timing! Ace, come here!"

Ace halted, turned around and entered the taken cubicle where the usual Galley-La gang sat. There were four of them – Lucci, a cold guy who told Sabo to go fuck himself when he tried to enlist him in his squad of models, Kaku, a guy who could be mistaken for Usopp because of his long nose, Kalifa, a tall blonde who accused Sabo of sexual harassment when he tried to enlist her, and Paulie, who refused the offer once he got to know that he probably would have to pose with half-naked women. Ace knew them through Robin who knew them because Lucci was her ex. All four went to Galley-La High that wasn't too far from Enies Lobby High both geographically and ranking-wise.

"What's up?" Ace asked as he leaned on the table.

"Can you help us with this? We have a test tomorrow and it's definitely going to be on it, but not even Lucci gets it," Paulie explained, giving Ace a textbook.

Ace put down his mug and accepted the book. He looked at what they were showing him feeling that he should be understanding it, but he didn't. It looked like complete gibberish. Just in case, Ace looked at the cover of the textbook and cringed – it was the very same book he got to dump on Monday.

"I wish I could help you, I really do, but this is way beyond me. I am no math genius," he said with a sigh, giving the book back to Paulie.

"Crap, what are we supposed to do now?" Paulie frowned in discontent.

"May I?" Marco-sempai reached for the book.

"Be our guest," Kaku said sceptically.

"Ace, can you please move?" Marco-sempai unceremoniously pushed Ace off the table, fearlessly took Lucci's copybook and his pen and opened the copybook on a blank page.

For the next ten minutes Ace stared in wonder as sempai easily solved the problems explaining stuff as he wrote in Lucci's copybook. What more, the way Marco explained actually made him think 'hey, I think I get this'. It also made him remember all the times he thought he was going to get an aneurism before he understood anything in that blasted textbook.

"Where the hell were you and your math abilities before?" Ace asked when Marco finished explaining.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I hate you," Ace said with a sigh, taking both their, now empty, mugs to return them to the kitchenette.

"What? Why?" sempai asked, surprised.

"I just do," he replied. Sometimes life was downright unfair, giving all-in-one package to some people. To others it just gave parts of the package, leaving them to drown. Not that Ace could complain, he was a lot better off than some people, but if he could choose, he would rather be in top ten in the academic ranking in their school than the popularity ranking. Still, if he got to choose between that and nothing, he'd rather be known for something than nothing at all. Still, life was unfair – guess who was ranked first in the academic ranking? The same frigging person who was ranked first in the popularity ranking, that's who.

(^_^)

He should have known that this was a bad idea. He should have just said no and went home like he planned. There was only one place in the world that had free cheese and it was a mousetrap. Marco should have remembered it sooner. Half of him suspected that Ace was doing that on purpose, the other half thought that it was some kind of cosmic joke. How was he supposed to know that when Ace asked him if he wanted any candy that his kouhai had a bag full of Chupa-Chupses?! Marco chose to believe that if they were normal sized he wouldn't have had any problem with that, but they were freaking XXL size! It did not help in the least that the first one Ace got his hands on was strawberry flavoured one, because it only made it easier for Marco to imagine a certain part of himself instead of that candy.

Marco took a deep breath as he massaged his temple, doing his best to keep his eyes on the textbook in front of him. He felt like crying – he couldn't get up and go into time-out because if he got up, his state would become very noticeable. If he could glare at Ace without risking utter humiliation, he would have. Marco moved his hand from his temple to his cheek but thankfully it wasn't warm. He had to get away from there to gather his scattered wits before he did something incredibly stupid.

He sneaked a peak at Ace to see if he was watching and immediately regretted it – his kouhai sat in his chair in relaxed manner, forsaken candy still in his hand. It just so happened that when Marco looked at him, he took the Chupa-Chups into his mouth in a way that left nothing to imagination. Marco stared at Ace's mouth completely transfixed, unsure if he wanted to kiss or fuck it. He shook his head in attempt to snap out of it. Suddenly his saving grace came in form of a phone call from Izo that gave Marco a legitimate excuse to abandon the sinking ship of his sanity. Ace barely looked up at him, nodding to his 'Sorry, I have to take this'.

"Hola, mi hermano," Izo said cheerfully – because being suspended got boring quickly, Marco's brother started studying Spanish on his own for fun. Marco's own Spanish vocabulary consisted of a single phrase, which he used:

"Oi, no habla español, English please," Marco said in slightly hushed voice – it was a library after all. He went to that lecture space by the kitchenette in order to not to disturb anyone.

"Right. What are you doing?" Izo's voice was muffled as if he was eating something.

"I'm at the city library, studying. Why?"

"You're no fun. Why are you always studying?"

"Do you need an answer to that?" Marco said meaning that one of the conditions of his scholarship at Enies Lobby was that he kept his grades well above average.

"Right, cause you're boring. Are you with Robin?"

"No, I'm with one of my kouhais, why?" Marco asked, hoping that this time he would get an answer.

"You don't study with your kouhais. Is this one of your 'date for a week' buddies?" Marco could literally see Izo's curiosity meter spike.

"Izo, what do you want?" he asked strictly – he was not going to discuss any of his problems with this particular brother. In fact, the only person Marco would probably be (not that he ever did, but if he felt like it) Robin, mostly because she knew when to keep her mouth shut, unlike any of his brothers.

"I'm bored and you didn't come home when you always do, so I called to see what you're doing and if I could join you, but, I guess, I cannot," came Izo's reply. "Or can I?"

Marco contemplated the suggestion for a minute. Would it be that bad for Izo to come over? Then he realised that he didn't need his brothers see him literally drool all over Ace.

"You are right, you can't. Go walk Stefan or something."

"Can't – Haruta already went out with him like ten minutes ago."

"Why didn't you go with her if you're so bored you called me?" Marco knew that he was way, way too desperate to drag out this conversation – the longer he talked, the longer he could be away from Ace and his stupid habit.

"I didn't think about it then… Can you give me a movie to watch or something?" Izo whined through whatever he was eating at the moment.

"How about I give you some schoolwork to do?" Marco suggested slyly.

"Ok, thanks, bye," Izo quickly hung up on him.

"Too easy," Marco muttered in amusement and then slapped his forehead – if he started discussing movies with Izo, he could easily spend ten more minutes away from Ace. He stared at the phone in contemplation – maybe he should call someone, talk to them about something, anything… Just when he was about to give up and go back, Pops called.

"Yes?" Marco answered suspiciously quickly.

"What's up with you, you never answer a call that quickly," Pops said, noticing the difference immediately.

"I just talked to Izo," Marco said – it wasn't a lie and his eagerness to talk on the phone had nothing to do with anything family related.

"Hm, alright then, what did he want?"

"Something to do. So why are you calling me?"

"Why are you talking so quietly?"

"I'm at the library," Marco explained – he unconsciously talked more quietly than necessary.

"Ah, so you're studying. Then I'll call Izo, give him something to do. Break a leg."

Marco stared at his phone in confusion – he got hung up on for the second time in less than five minutes. Steeling himself for what he was about to face again, he slowly walked back to the cubicle he and Ace occupied. He was thoroughly tempted to turn around and use the bathroom as an excuse but he reminded himself that he was not supposed to be coward (a part of him argued that this wasn't cowardice but a necessary precaution in order to avoid any more sexual frustration) and walked into the cubicle.

"Thank God," he mouthed when he found Ace unconscious with his face in the book he was reading and that damned candy nowhere to be seen.

Marco was about to go to his seat when he got an idea. It was stupid, childish, below him, but brilliant. As quietly as he could, he walked over to Ace's bag and opened it soundlessly. There, in the main compartment, were candies that came from the hell itself, designed to rob him of whatever sanity he had left. Quickly (and quietly), Marco stole the Chupa-Chupses and sneaked back to his spot to put the stolen candy in his bag. 'Mission completed', he thought happily. Well on time too, because in a moment Ace stirred, scaring him at first.

"Ouch…" the raven muttered; Marco kept pinching his own leg under the table to keep the creepy happy smile away from his face. "I hate tables… Oh, you're back."

"Mhm," Marco nodded, closing his bag inconspicuously.

He should not have been surprised that the first thing Ace did was to look into his own bag.

"There goes my supply of glucose… Stupid blond bastard…" Ace muttered under his breath, making Marco go cold.

"Excuse me?" he asked, wearing his best 'I have no idea what you're talking about' face.

"Ah, it's not you, it's Paulie!" Ace waved his hands. "He always steals my candy and I'm way too lazy to chase him around to get it back."

Marco nodded, eternally grateful to whichever woman that gave birth to Paulie. And to Paulie as well for stealing all the Chupa-Chupses before so that no one became suspicious of him. Ace, however, was not pleased with the whole thing.

"How am I supposed to think now?" he muttered angrily, glaring in general direction of Paulie's location.

Before Ace could get up and confront the man Marco unknowingly framed, Marco hastily offered:

"Gum? At least it's better for your teeth," he turned to his bag again, thankfully the pack was in outer pocket, so he did not need to open the bag and risk revealing himself as a culprit.

"Thanks," Ace said, accepting the pack. Marco let out a breath he was holding, feeling like it was a very close one for his mental health. At least he learned his lesson – no more study sessions with Ace, at least not while there were any Chupa-Chupses anywhere in approximate vicinity.

I hope you liked this chapter, it was both fun and a pain to write :D This scene has been in my head for quite some time, it's nice to see it written down :D

Thank you for all the reviews, favs and follows!

I really hope to see you guys soon, but unfortunatly I can't promise that. Thus, until next time,

~Rhe.