Kiyotaka Ishimaru had not anticipated just how frustrating it would be to do schoolwork with Mondo Oowada. He wanted Oowada to do well, and he wanted to help him on his journey of doing well, but – it was so hard to work with someone who worked at a pace that was so much slower than his, and as well as that Oowada got distracted easily and his notes were full of doodles and overall Kiyotaka Ishimaru was not quite sure how to handle this without screaming and tearing his hair out.

Not that he would ever do that, even if he were in his room and away from the public eye.

He took a deep breath. "Alright," he said. The two of them sat together at his desk, a little crushed – Ishimaru had had to put most of his books on the floor so that Oowada would have room, though Oowada had barely brought anything at all, and while that was disappointing in and of itself, it did help with their space issue – and Ishimaru was slowly talking Oowada through his math.

"And then you – this is why you should be using a pencil, brother, here, you can borrow mine, you will probably want to rewrite out that sheet anyway – and-"

"Fuck it," Oowada said. He stood up and threw the pencil that Ishimaru had literally just lent him a few moments before to the ground. "I can't do this. You're too smart for me, bro. You're wishing you never asked me to do homework with you."

"No!" Ishimaru said. He stood up. "Perhaps I am a bit frustrated, but that is because I am one hundred percent sure you are not trying your hardest!"

"I am!" Oowada said. His face was red, and Ishimaru was fairly certain that it was not from shouting. "News flash, we can't all be geniuses like you-"

"I am not a genius!" Ishimaru said, taking a few steps forward so that the two of them were so close he could move an inch and be pressed against Oowada. "Do not say that! I have worked hard for everything, and I know that you can have the same results if you work hard! But I am not a genius. I work hard. I focus. I spend every moment I can studying, and that is why at this point, it is easier for me than for you! Because that's what I've been doing for YEARS! So don't you-"

But then something happened.

Oowada grabbed onto the front of his shirt and pulled him up, as though he was going to shout at him, because people always got close when the yelled, Ishimaru himself was no exception, but instead of yelling, he kissed Ishimaru. Ishimaru froze, Oowada dropped him, they stared at each other for a few minutes, and then Oowada bolted. He didn't even bother to grab his books – he must have felt seriously… something.

Ishimaru knew that he was feeling seriously something.

He went over to his bed on shaky legs and sat down, putting one hand to his mouth. He could still feel Oowada's lips pressing against his. His lips felt slightly swollen, because Oowada had been using quite a bit of force, and his uniform was wrinkled, and he was still angry about the genius comment, but he felt…

Something.

Feelings had never come easily to Kiyotaka Ishimaru. Perhaps it was a lifetime of pushing them down, keeping them boxed so that he could more efficiently get done what he needed to get done, or perhaps it was just not in his personality to be very good at deciphering how he felt about things. He wasn't very adept at dealing with emotionally intense situations, either – if he got too happy, or too sad, or too anything, he had an annoying tendency for tears to rise up and for his throat to get tight. Which was, perhaps, an effect of possibly boxing up most feelings so that he could be more efficient.

But he also thought about the embarrassing dreams he had. Half of the time they included girls – Aoi Asahina, Akane Owari, and Sayaka Maizono frequented these ones, and the other half of the time they included men. He tried not to think about the ones that included men most of the time, simply because it was not what was expected of him. He didn't like to wake up in the middle of the night from a dream where he was getting intimate with Nekomaru Nidai, or Yasuhiro Hagakure or – or Oowada himself all flushed and sweating and sticky. He disliked that very much.

Not only did he have to do laundry, which was often quite annoying and a bit embarrassing, but how could he – how could he keep his parents proud if he fell in love with a man? They expected him to get good grades and get into a good university and get a good job, and marry a good woman from a good family with good morals, and if this something with Oowada turned into not just something but actually SOMETHING, something where they dated and where they kissed and where they moved from brothers to something more romantic, then all of that went out the door.

It suddenly hit him, what Enoshima had said. Enoshima had known, somehow, and Ishimaru had simply brushed it off because he hadn't thought that Oowada would have a crush on him. It wasn't something that he had ever considered before, because despite the dreams he didn't like to think about that. He rarely did. While the dreams and other things crossed his mind whenever he saw Kazuichi Souda and Leon Kuwata together, laughing and touching each other and, when they thought nobody was looking pressing their foreheads against each other and threading their fingers through the other's hair, a pair of dyed-hair delinquent-looking high schoolers, he didn't think about it.

But there was something.

But perhaps that something was just friendship. Because he had not had friends before, and while what he felt for Mondo Oowada was much different than what he felt for Sonia Nevermind – well, what was to say he wasn't in love with Sonia Nevermind? While she may be a bit of a long shot, being a princess and all, she would be much more suitable for him to fall in love with than Mondo Oowada.

He remembered another one of Enoshima's comments – to ask Sonia Nevermind out. Perhaps he should. Perhaps they should study together, and on the weekends go out and study at coffee shops or things like that, and hold hands, and share chaste kisses, and eventually when he was Prime Minister and she was Queen they would maybe get married and then when he was done being Prime Minister he would have a place to go back to that wasn't SHAME.

His parents would probably be proud of him if he married a princess.

But even if that was impossible, as he suspected it might be, there was no reason why he shouldn't try and continue to get closer to her. He would make plans. They would make plans to spend more time together, perhaps they would eat meals together and such, too, and then eventually, that something he felt for Mondo Oowada would just be a friendship something.

But that lead him to think of one other thing-

What would his relationship with Oowada be after this? Would Oowada want to see his face again, ever again?

He shook his head and stood up. He would go speak to Sonia now. He would go and they would make plans for dinner or something and then he would go up into the library and he would study, because he didn't know if he could stand beside that desk without thinking about Oowada kissing him.

He headed to the door, made sure his uniform was impeccable before opening it, and headed out. He ignored Oowada's door as he searched for Sonia – he scoured the school, running into several people, including that reserve student that he'd seen with Souda before, before finally finding her in the infirmary watching Mikan Tsumiki bandage up Akane Owari.

"Excuse me," he said, and both Sonia and Tsumiki looked up, Tsumiki shrieking a little. Ishimaru blinked. "Um. I apologize for startling you, Tsumiki-kun. S-Sonia-" Sonia had told him a few days ago to just call her Sonia, and he did stumble with it, though he wasn't quite sure how to address her earlier, so he'd just sort of tried to avoid calling her by her name whatsoever. "-I was wondering if we perhaps could eat together tonight!"

Sonia blinked and smiled at him. "That would be nice, Ishimaru-san," she said. "I appreciate your asking! I will see you tonight?"

"Yes," Ishimaru said. "I will meet you in front of your room?"

"Yes, that sounds quite nice," Sonia said, and she smiled at him, and he beamed back at her, and he left thoroughly confused. The only thing he really felt like he knew was that he felt very, very different about Sonia Nevermind than Mondo Oowada, and that last conversation had just made it so, so clear to him.

And that would not normally be a problem, but the way he felt about Mondo Oowada felt much more exciting, and he was fairly certain that love was supposed to feel exciting.

But he couldn't think about that. He had quite a bit of homework to power through before meeting Sonia Nevermind for dinner.


hello we are back and mondo oowada has screwed up

updating schedule now – i'm just going to be going through the list that i'm updating, trying to finish… and so that means maybe two or three chapters a week, maybe more, maybe less. probably definitely at least one a week.