Now.

The classroom was empty, they were alone. Takeru took a deep breath, face already turning red just thinking about it.

All right. Calm down. It's only part of the bet after all. You have an obligation to fulfil. No need to be nervous.

He closed his eyes and thought back to the night before. He remembered getting off the Ferris Wheel with Hikari and walking her back to the others, where Taichi informed them that Mrs. Yagami wanted her two children home before frostbite would rid her of them. Takeru said good bye to them, and Hikari said that she had to run errands for the teachers the next morning and told him he should go ahead and go inside the school without waiting for her. He couldn't find Yamato or Koushiro or Sora, so he carefully walked back to the darts game where a bored Sayuri was waiting.

"I see you've come for your humiliating defeat."

"I never lose at these type of things."

She rolled her eyes at his apparent "chauvinistic behaviour" and pointed to the water guns. She went first, missing the first target completely and catching only three of the seven monkeys with the sprays.

Then it was his turn.

He loaded up with as much water as he could and forcefully told himself to not look at her while he shot. He got the target fine, but after his second monkey,some three-year-old kid wandered overto watch and dropped half his ice creamcone andshe'dbent over to help fix his cone so the dessert would stop slipping. Unfortunately for Takeru, he happened to choose that time to glance at her with a victory smirk and wound up missing the last five monkeys, vision completely distracted. She didn't notice his gaze or where it was directed, and only sent the child off his parents and looked back at the game in time to see that she had won. Miserably, but she still won all the same.

As it turned out, they were great at carnival games but totally sucked at water guns (a relatively new unfair addition to the carnival, in Takeru's opinion).

So he lost, and as soon as he realised that, his face coloured the darkest red ever noted by a Japanese person to possess, and Sayuri innocently remarked on it, making him blush even harder. The thought of having to—

Although, he had to admit, it wasn't a bad thought. He had spent the majority of English this term daydreaming about such an opportunity, but it didn't feel right that he had got the chance through a bet.

Ah, forget that.

This was a once in a lifetime type of thing.

Now was the moment. If ever God tried to tell him to go for something, this was definitely it.

He got to school the next morning and was met by an empty classroom and his pretty rival floating around the room as though nothing had happened. Sayuri was looking inside her desk, pulling out her textbooks to prepare for class. Her curly hair was combed half-up and half-down, a few strands left to frame her face. She looked absolutely normal, without a care in the world, and, though she realised he was standing there, didn't seem the least bit embarrassed about what was supposed to happen.

She dropped her eraser and he chuckled at her clumsiness. Which was a bad idea.

"Takaishi!"

"Huh?" Oh, good one, Takeru. 'Huh'. Real clever.

"Find my eraser."

"Just buy a new one." That made for a good present. She shot him a deadly glare. Or not.

He sank to the ground grumbling, scanning the floor through the gaps in between the chairs. She was on her hands and knees, crawling around the desks and muttering something about the incurable imbecility of teenage boys.

How did he ever come to like her anyway? The other guys heard the stories and kept their distance, too well acquainted with her temper. But no. Not Takeru. He just had to get in over his head. Never mind that she had the best left-hook in the school and an impressively long record of making guys cry after a brutal rejection. Never mind that he had no chance, considering her obvious repulsion of him and all members of the human male race, and that he'd be better off digging his own grave. None of these truths made any difference to him, and he was still old-fashioned to hope for a positive change in her attitude, something that was ranked as number one on his never-in-million-years list.

"I thought I asked you to look for the eraser, Takaishi."

"You never asked me anything."

"Didn't anyone ever teach you how to say no? You do a remarkable job at it when the girls swarm over you during lunch. What's the difference from that situation to an eraser-hunt?"

He was awfully glad the chair was blocking them, his ears now a fascinating shade of dark pink.

"Well?" she expected an answer, but the look on her face showed she wasn't interested in one.

He ducked his head down, away from her, and spotted the eraser lying a few inches from his shoe. He grabbed it, almost breaking his elbow as it banged against the leg of the chair.

"Found it," he winced.

"Give it," she turned back towards him.

He grinned. Opportunity.

"What on earth are you smiling about?" she demanded. "You have that same ridiculous look on your face that your brother did yesterday. It's frightening, if nothing else. I'll never understand what's supposed to mean."

It was supposed to be the Takaishi Smile. His grin was slowly being replaced by a frown. Obviously, it didn't work on her. That was a first.

Her hand was outstretched as she leaned forward, reaching for the eraser. He hid it in his hand, fingers enclosed around it tightly.

"You want it, come and get it."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Quit acting like a child and hand it over," she leaned in closer to him.

His free hand shot out and caught hold of her wrist. He pulled her close and with a triumphant smile, kissed her. A book made contact with the side of his face and he fell back, letting go of her.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she cried, leaping to her feet, book still clutched in her hand in preparation for another attack, her other hand clamped over her mouth in shock.

He rubbed his head, struggling to his feet. "Finishing the bet. I had to kiss you, remember?"

She stared at him in disbelief.

"I cannot believe you did that."

"Don't be so quick to judge," he started slowly, grinning. "You didn't let me finish."

Suddenly, he didn't like the look on her face.

"Finish?" she repeated.

Maybe that wasn't such a good opportunity.

"You want to finish it, do you?" she asked.

Oh boy. This wasn't good.

He searched for a way out before he was victim to her temper.

"Oh, I'll show you finished," she assured, smiling wickedly.

"Hey, come on, Sayuri. That was part of the bet. I had to do it. It was your idea, by the way, you can't get mad at me for—,"

"Who said I was mad?" she was getting far to close to him for comfort.

He panicked, darting to the other side of the room. She trapped him in the aisle.

"Sayuri—,"

"Takaishi, I do believe you've forgotten something," she advanced on him, blocking exits. "You may have kissed me, but that wasn't part of the bet."

"What do you—?"

"I said you had to kiss me in front of the whole class."

"This is the class! 'Course, no one's here. But this is the class—,"

"You know what I meant, Takaishi," she smiled sweetly. That was not a good sign. He bumped into the teacher's table, leaning back against it. She reached him by then, tugging gently at the buttons of his uniform shirt. "I hate guys who think they can take advantage of me."

His eyes widened and he started to shake his head. She pressed a finger to his lips to silence any protesting words, her nose touching his.

"It's time to settle this."

She shoved him onto the desk and he fell back on top of it, papers flying off. Climbing after him, she pinned him down with one hand on his chest as he tried to struggle away in panic.

This can't be good for hormone control wasthe first thought that entered his bewildered mind as she crawled on top of him.

"School is about to start," she pointed out, indicating the time from the classroom clock. "They'll be here any second now."

His face burned a brilliant red. There was no way he was going to be caught by the whole class looking like—like—this!

"I'll teach you not to play games with me," she said in a dangerously low tone. "Now," she pulled herself fully on top of the desk,straddlinghim to keep him from getting away, "we get to finish it."

Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him, her bangs tickling his cheeks. Takeru was too shocked to react to anything, a cold rush sweeping across his body that was immediately followed by a heat wave as his face turned the reddest it had in his short existence. She pulled away once and he gasped, completely thrown off guard.

"That's what you get for acting like the jerk you are," she whispered, touching the tip of her tongue to the spot just below his ear, and he shivered, biting back a groan. She brushed her lips across his cheek before bringing them back to his mouth, the kiss much slower this time to let him get enough taste of it. She teased open his mouth, running her tongue along his teeth, biting on his bottom lip, finally meeting his own tongue.By now he lacked all feeling in his body, frozen up from the simple touch of her skin against his.

Dizzy and weak, he was certain he had lost control of all other bodily functions, but he certainly didn't need to be paralysed to hear the door slide open just then. The usual chatter of the students died down immediately as they caught a glimpse of the spectacle on top of their teacher's desk. The seconds of stunned silence were short-lived.

"Hot damn!" one boy whooped and the class exploded. This only made Sayuri kiss him harder, leaving Takeru to helplessly grip the edges of the desk in his frozen hands.

"How come Takaishi always lands himself with the hottest girls?"

"Well, he's certainly landing something—,"

"What's going on?"

"Is that Takeru? And Sayuri?"

"Oh my god!"

"I thought she hated him—?"

"Hell, if that's her hating then I wouldn't mind her loving—,"

"Now that has got to be the best tongue work I've seen this side of the Pacific—,"

"Don't let us interrupt you," a student called when Sayuri paused a moment. "By all means, carry on."

"I give it a nine point eight for performance—,"

"And a ten for style—,"

"Exactly what is going on here?" the teacher entered the scene. "I thought I told you all to go to your seats—oh. Oh."

She pulled away finally (to the distress of the spectators) and smiled down at him almost shyly.

"I think that's enough for now," Sayuri said softly, breathing just as hard as him, her words not heard by the rest of the gossiping classmates. Takeru found it very difficult to respond after that show, hormones going wild inside him.

Forget his daydreams—that wasway more amazingthan anything he could have dreamt up.

Except for the staring audience part.

She sat up straight, still sitting on top of him as she smoothed her skirt and blouse, brushing her bangs back. Casually, she picked herself off the table with ease and calmly walked to her desk, sitting down as though kissing Takaishi was something she did on a normal agenda. The rest of the class wandered back to the their desks in excited groups, clearly pumped up after that entertaining event. Some of the guys crowded around Takeru, who was still lying on top of the desk, blue eyes wide, paralysed and numb with a funny sort of pleased disbelief.

"Hey, Takaishi?" one boy asked, wondering if he should try poking the youth.

"I think he's in shock," another observed.

The third bent down curiously, "He's breathing. Barely."

The second grinned.

"That must have been one hell of a kiss."

"Takaishi, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like my desk back," the teacher said dryly. "And I want to see the both of you after class."

Sayuri smiled innocently, ignoring the looks from the other girls.

"Of course, sir."

-

Takeru slumped over in his chair while the others hurried by him. Some of the guys elbowed him in the arm, grinning and dropping impressed guy codes as they did so. He ignored him, ears pink. He had never been so embarrassed in his life. That was humiliation to the extreme. Now every one would think that he—and the teacher—! He whimpered, banging his head on the desk. He couldn't believe this was happening to him.

But then he remembered the tingling pressure of her mouth against his, the wayshe'dtasted,and decidedhe could believe it. He only wished it hadn't happened like that—in front of everybody. Or that he could have gotten the courage to kiss her back. But at least she had been his for a few minutes. Yeah right. More like he had been a manipulated puppet for her rather than she the fulfilment of yearlong obsession for him.

Still, that was one hell of a kiss.

Sayuri was still smiling at the teacher by the time the rest of the class had left, hands clasped in her lap. The teacher cleared his throat.

"Well, that was a…highly amusing…event you two have…entertained us with this morning…. Certainly a nice way to…kick off winter vacation."

"I sincerely apologise for any problems we might have caused, sir," Sayuri said in a foreign tone. Since when was she that nice? Takeru looked up and found the teacher smiling back at her gratefully. Somehow, sucking up to the teacher was worse coming from her than from Hikari.

Takeru shivered. Thank God Hikari hadn't been here. Or Daisuke. Thank God they had to run that errand for the teacher and thank God it lasted the entire time. If they had seen he wouldn't have heard the end of it. Especially from Daisuke, who he knew had been rejected by Sayuri several times already. Thank you, thank you.

"I tried to warn him, sir, but he just gets so passionate over things."

Takeru stared at her. What in the hey?

The teacher chuckled, trapped under Sayuri's spell.

"Well, let's save the…passion for writing and composition next term, shall we, Mr...Takaishi?"

Somebody kill me.

"Now you two…since this is the last day of term, I'm going to let you off for this. But don't think it will happen again…. The next place you choose for your…rendezvous better not be my desk."

"I can assure you it won't happen again, sir. Thank you so much for understanding." Sayuri rose to her feet, still smiling. "I only hope you are our homeroom teacher again next term. Have a wonderful vacation, sir."

"You, too, Miss Iahii," the teacher waved. "Charming young girl," he said after she had left. Charming, yeah right. "Well, Mr. Takaishi. I can't say I disagree with your…choice for a lady…but I will say I disagree with your…behaviour. However hard you have it for Miss Iahii, that does not give you permission to…well you know…especially in my classroom. Please leave that for a more…for some other time. After all, you have the rest of your life ahead of you…plenty more Miss Iahiis to come, no need to rush things…. Do you understand?"

Takeru nodded dumbly, not believing his ears. The teacher fidgeted in his chair, pulling on his tie.

"Do you…need me to explain anything…to you, or talk about anything, Mr. Takaishi?"

He stared at him, lost. If his tongue was functioning (which he seriously doubted wouldn't for a considerable amount of time after that) he would have asked the teacher, with all due respect, what he was talking about.

"Well, every young man…goes through…well, at one point or another…sometimes little boys develop strong feelings for little girls and then…well, you see…when a boy…that is, when a man…er, when a boy happens to…well, at a certain point in everyone's life…most people's lives…the average person…sometimes…."

Oh God.

Comprehension dawned. Takeru went beet red.

The teacher leaned in uncomfortably, eyes focused on Takeru's pale face.

"Do we need to have The Talk?"

Oh God.

He quickly shook his head. The teacher looked relieved.