The penultimate chapter of this story and, honestly, I really need to learn time management. Not as late as yesterday, but I've had some complications that happened.

Anyway, today's theme is AU meeting. I tried to think of what to do, and ended up deciding to go with them meeting at a school in a more modern-ish setting. Yeah, there's an entire AU story with that premise that hasn't been updated in a long while, but this is just a short one-shot.

Not much else to say here… so enjoy.

Disclaimers: Fire Emblem belongs to Nintendo, Intelligent Systems, Koei Techmo, etc.

Byleth gave off a small sigh as he looked at his test grade and saw how low it was.

"You are going to go to tutoring until that grade goes up!" he heard his father's voice echo in his mind.

The teen soon arrived at the tutoring lab, entering it with an annoyed look. He signed in and took a seat as he awaited his tutor to show up. In his mind's eye, he could see the stereotypical image of a nerd with glasses that was awkward and annoying to deal with. Byleth soon heard the chair across from him be moved and turned to greet the person who would be tutoring him.

"Hello there, Byleth," the bluenette greeted as she took a seat across from him, "I'm Marianne. Nice to meet you."

"Oh. Nice to meet you too…" Byleth responded as a blush formed on his face.

"Well, let's go ahead and get started," Marianne smiled as she took out some textbooks and saw the test grade, "...ooh… yikes."

"Yeah… math is… a pain…" Byleth responded as he got out some paper and pencils, "Not helped by the fact the teacher just left with no warning and our long-term sub seems more interested in talking about fast food instead of teaching us."

Marianne ended up wincing a little bit upon hearing that, then exhaled, "So… you're from that class? That explains a lot. Looks like I got a lot of ground to cover…"

The two remained in the tutoring center for the next handful of hours, with Marianne slowly going over a bunch of material that was on the test and that would be on the make up test. Byleth let out a heavy sigh as he attempted to process it and make notes that would make some amount of sense to himself.

After they had passed the two hour mark, both pulled away from the lesson and got out some snacks and drinks to pass a bit of time, as well as unwind.

"Honestly… I don't get why we have to learn about so much complicated stuff…" Byleth admitted, "Like… I get the basic amount of math, but… when in a real life situation is someone going to need trigonometry?"

"...we weren't even talking about that…" Marianne stated.

"It was just the first math term I could think of…" Byleth responded with a bit of a shrug.

Marianne simply nodded, then took a bite of a banana she had with her. She looked over Byleth carefully for a moment before speaking, "I can at least understand that frustration with classes not being helpful, or having awful teachers that don't help. I mean… I could close my eyes and imagine you would be a far more competent teacher than some of the ones I've had."

"You couldn't pay me enough to do that," Byleth chuckled.

Both of them laughed a little bit at the remark, but both quieted down a little and enjoyed the relative silence between the two of them.

Some days passed and Byleth was continuing to be tutored, but also had spent a little bit of time here and there with Marianne after school and just became good friends with her.

"Your make-up test is coming up… I hope that it'll go well for you," Marianne told Byleth as they walked alongside each-other.

"I have some confidence since I have an amazing tutor by my side," Byleth told her with a smile.

This ended up making Marianne blush a little bit in response as they kept walking. She then smiled at him, "Thank you."

"No problem."

Soon enough, the day of the retest came along. The retest would be after school and would last until all of the students were finished. Byleth gave off a small sigh as he walked off to his classroom, trying to be calm as he walked along. He soon heard somebody speed-walking over to his side and slowed down, then smiled when he saw it was Marianne.

"Hi," she greeted, "Um… I wanted to wish you good luck. I know you got this."

"Thanks," Byleth smiled before Marianne took off the glasses she had and handed them over to him, "...huh?"

"Think of it as a good luck charm. I'm not blind without them, so take them for now," Marianne told him.

"...alright," Byleth nodded as he set the glasses into a pocket that was on the front of his shirt, "Hey… after I'm done… would you like to hang out? Like… on a date?"

This offer made Marianne blink and then blush a tiny bit. She got a little nervous at the offer, but then calmed herself quickly, "...B- or higher, and I'll go on a date with you. Fair?"

"Fair."

Byleth soon arrived in the classroom and took his place. He ended up pulling out the glasses and gently set them on the desk, soon imagining Marianne's smiling face across from himself. He took a calming breath as the test papers were handed out…

A few weeks later…

"I didn't get a B-..." Byleth began sorrowfully to Marianne.

"Oh…"

"I GOT AN A-!" Byleth beamed as he took out the test.

Marianne's eyes widened and she looked to see the grade was indeed genuine and not modified in any way. She then pulled Byleth into a hug, which he quickly returned. The two happily laughed a bit. Byleth and Marianne soon let go of each-other and just gave each-other warm smiles.

"So… I believe I said we can go on a date if you got B- or higher, and you did," Marianne smiled.

"Right," Byleth nodded, "Shall we?"

"We shall."

I'll admit that this one just sort of… flowed, if that makes sense. Like… I thought of the premise, and then the idea sort of flowed onto the page.

Also, the background details of Byleth losing a teacher and then having a non-helpful sub… yeah… that was inspired by something that happened to me back in 11th grade. My luck in that semester was terrible.

Oh, and my favorite part here was the bit where Byleth and Marianne were joking about how "you couldn't pay me enough to be a teacher". Just… irony given canon.

Alright… one more chapter. Just… one more… and then we're done with this story. ...and then PearlShipping Day is coming in the near future… and I still got other projects to finish. *exhales* One step at a time… one step at a time.

Just Live More.