"Hazuki-kun, would you please come up here?"

Nagisa stood up and walked up to his math teacher to receive the test they had been doing earlier on this week. It had now been corrected. Half of his classmates had already received theirs. Nagisa stood by the teacher's desk and awaited the results. The teacher looked at the paper.

"Your grades have dropped," he said, showing the paper. "I don't understand. You were at a standard level at your exams in 9th grade. Now you are barely making it through a pass, what's going on?" he asked.

Nagisa bit his lower lip. "I don't know," he answered while looking at the crossed answers on the paper and not at his teacher's face.

"Well, no matter what the problem is, it has to be fixed soon," the teacher smiled. "At least you have gotten the hang of the fundamentals,"

Nagisa nodded and received the paper before heading back to his seat, listening as another of his classmates were summoned. A slightly gloomy expression was on his face and he kept on looking down all the way back to his seat, therefore he didn't notice that Gou tried to make eye contact with him.

Nagisa was unusually silent during the lunch break. Chigusa and Gou were discussing something about Chigusa's club activities and Momotaro was constantly trying to claim Gou's attention with no luck. Normally Nagisa would take part in the conversation and distract Momotaro with a conversation about swimming or something else, but today his head was occupied with other things.

"Nagisa-kun," Gou said suddenly. "How is Rin-senpai and Haruka-senpai doing?" occasionally she would ask about Rin and Haruka seeing as she was their younger sister, biologically, and had got the right to worry about them.

"They're fine," Nagisa said. "Both Rin-chan and Haru-chan are thinking a lot about the future," he said.

"What are they planning on doing?" Gou asked curiously.

"I think swimming," Nagisa answered. "They wanna go to Australia,"

"What about your other brother… Ryugazaki-san?" Chigusa asked. "He is studying, isn't he?"

Nagisa nodded with a smile on his face. "Something about chemistry and biology," he said.

"Isn't it tough at an ordinary university?" Momotaro asked.

Gou turned to him. "Doesn't your brother go to a university too? Why do you ask?"

Momotaro smiled. "He does go to university but it's not an ordinary one. It's for swimmers," he smiled and leaned back, already finished his bento.

"So he is on the same path as Rin-chan and Haru-chan's gonna follow?" Nagisa asked. "Your brother must be amazing," he exclaimed, by now having returned to his usual cheerful self.

"He's amazing yeah," Momotaro smiled. "But I have had to get my amazingness from somewhere, don't I?" he grinned widely and Nagisa approved.

After school, Nagisa headed home slowly. Haruka and Rin had had to go swimming today so they couldn't walk home together like they did sometimes. It had been like this ever since they started high school. The first year Nagisa had had Rei to walk home with and gotten used to not walk home with the other two, which had made days like these easier for him. He didn't like walking home alone very much, but it was only today it seemed to bother him.

For some reason, he found himself walking that little detour past the building where they used to live, and right outside he ran into someone whom he recognized.

"You were one of Yamazaki-kun's friends weren't you?" Miyano-san asked.

"Yeah, Hazuki Nagisa," Nagisa asked.

Next to Miyano Hiroko was her daughter Nanami. She looked up at Nagisa with a shy smile on her face. "Isn't Nanase-sama with you?" Nanami asked.

Nagisa shook his head. "Haru-chan had to do something else today," Nagisa explained.

Miyano-san smiled. "Hazuki-kun, your brothers and yourself seem to be bounding well with Nanami. She hasn't stopped talking about you ever since you walked her to school on the first day," she smiled. "So I was wondering, since I work a lot in late hours and my ex-husband is away a lot, would you mind looking after Nanami every now and then?" she asked.

Nagisa looked at the girl. "Like… a babysitter?" he asked.

Miyano-san nodded. "Won't that be fun, Nanami?" she asked.

Nanami nodded her head once.

Nagisa thought about that. Kisumi would lose his model job very soon and would earn nothing for a while. Both Makoto and Rei were very concerned about that loss of money and Rin and Haruka were unable to help out because of their training. If Nagisa accepted this offer then maybe he could help out.

"It'd be fun," he declared. "I don't mind doing it, but I've never had a job before," he said.

Miyano-san smiled. "No worries. It's nothing more than a couple of nights a week. I will be home before dinnertime and if I'm not, I'll inform you and leave some dinner you can heat up," she said.

Nagisa nodded. "Sounds good!" he said. "I have to go home now, Mako-chan'll get worried," He went past them and waved. "See you, Miyano-san, see you, Nana-chan!" he said before heading home, now in a much better mood than before. It had helped talking to someone.

After dinner at home, it was time to do homework. Nagisa hadn't had the time to tell about his job because Rin had been busy talking about a new technique he had been taught today to make his butterfly stroke faster. It didn't matter though. He could always tell them about this another day.

Now he had to focus on the important task at hand. He had to do what Rei had taught him to do long ago and go over his math test and try to figure out the right answers and thereby improve his own ability. He looked through them one by one but found himself stuck half way down the page, by a problem he hadn't even been able to answer in class and therefore had skipped. There was only one thing he could do in this case.

Nagisa stood and walked to the bedroom that he and Rei shared. Rei was in there, using his laptop for something, Nagisa had no clue what it was.

"Rei-chan, could you help me out?" he asked.

"If it's a problem, can't you ask someone else?" Rei asked while not taking his eyes away from the screen. The light from it was reflecting in his glasses so Nagisa couldn't even see his eyes.

"But it's really difficult," Nagisa said.

"I don't have time," Rei answered irritated. "I have my own studying to do," he said.

Nagisa let out a sigh. "Sorry, Rei-chan," he mumbled and closed the door, leaving Rei alone to his studies. He decided to look over the other tasks and solve them correctly and then move on to his other homework for English and modern literature.

Once he was done with the other homework it had been nearly two hours since he asked Rei for help. Figuring Rei would surely be done with most of his studying by now, Nagisa returned to the room.

"Rei-chan?" he asked as he opened the door. "I really need help," he begged.

Rei still didn't look up at him. "I told you to ask someone else," he said coldly. He hadn't even moved from the spot he sat in before.

"But Rei-chan!" Nagisa exclaimed.

"Stop acting so childish, Nagisa," Rei demanded, only now looking up. "Can't you see I'm doing something else? Leave me alone!" The last part was nearly a yell.

"I'm sorry, Rei-chan…" Nagisa trailed off before leaving the room again. This was the reason why he was failing in math. For a while now, he hadn't been able to get the help he needed. Sure the others could solve the problem fine, but Rei-chan was the only one who could make Nagisa understand it. Why won't he get that?

YES! We are finally done with all the boring introduction to the story and are getting started on the real plot! I hope you like it :)

Jackie