The next day, Kristian wanted to dig a hole and bury himself in it.

Why did I ask him to hold my hand? Kristian groaned inwardly, staring at his alarm clock in horror. Why do I have to make everything WEIRD?

Kristian always excelled at royally Fucking Things Over, and this was definitely one of those moments. He wondered if Nikolai thought he had a crush on him, when that was extremely far from the truth.

The truth?

Kristian curled up on his blankets, contemplating on what exactly was the truth for him. How did he think about Nikolai? What was his perspective on the silent, moody, mischievous, sparkly-eyed, beautiful…

He quickly shook his head to dispel those thoughts. Kristian was a strong, independent Icelander who didn't need no man, for god's sake. He was also (debatably) straight. Kind of.

Flashbacks of middle-school crushes on a mixture of males and females galloped through his brain, making him want to die.

"There was that crush on Matt," Kristian mumbled to himself, "and Stacy, and Xiu, and that mean Albert, and…"

He walked to school while calculating the number of male crushes verses female crushes he had over the years.

"Nikolai? Hello?"

Nikolai looked up from his laptop and at Arthur, who was currently sipping tea from his mug. "What's up?" Nikolai said, turning to look at the power point slides in front of him. He had no idea what was going on, and half-heartedly listened to his professor rambling about some topic or another.

"You haven't typed a single thing down." Arthur commented, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not lending you my notes, just saying."

"You dick." Nikolai muttered. They were trapped in a three-hour lecture, and Nikolai hadn't even paid the remotest bit of attention to the rather boring professor. "I was busy."

"Thinking about something?" Arthur said with a faint smirk. "Was it about a certain silver-haired boy?"

"No," Nikolai denied vehemently, "of course not." He was definitely not thinking about the softness of Kristian's hand, or the way his fingers delicately dug into the grooves of his hand. And Nikolai was not thinking about how he wanted to do it again.

"So you were." Arthur's smile widened, and he closed his notebook to focus more on Nikolai. "You want to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?" Nikolai said, typing on his laptop furiously in order to look occupied. "As you can see, I am busy studenting, and you're infringing on my right to student because you refuse to student. Allow me to continue my studenting, please."

"I'm going to ignore your atrocious misuse of verbs and focus on what's more interesting than Statistics 101- your rather sad love life." Arthur said.

"You're rather uncharacteristically interested in drama today." Nikolai said, eyeing him warily. "Is it to avoid the topic of you and a certain American?"

At this, Arthur's face flared bright red and he laughed forcefully in response. "E-excuse me?" Arthur stuttered, scrambling to pick up his pen. "What American? Who? That bumbling fool? That fatty?"

"He's really not fat." Nikolai cut in, but Arthur kicked his leg in response.

"Sh! We're in a lecture." Arthur managed to say, the tips of his ears still red as a tomato. "We'll talk about this later."

Nikolai smiled a bit at this but quickly hid it by turning to look at his empty document, imagining what he was going to do after class. Kristian ended class at 3:00, as any sad high school student would, so he had a few hours to kill before meeting him. Perhaps he could visit the bakery Kristian liked to pick up a few super sweet confections. Or the coffee shop Kristian was fond of to pick up an extra-sugary, extra-whipped cream monstrosity that he adored. Or maybe the library that Kristian wanted to check out the other day…

He spent the rest of the class daydreaming about Kristian.

"So I'm kind of in a tight spot right now." Kristian declared to his friends after school. "I think I like someone."

"Nikolai?" Kaoru piped in.

"Nikolai." Matthew said, kicking at a rock.

"Nikolai, right?" Gilbert said uninterestedly.

"Um, it is clearly not him." Kristian denied, looking miffed. "It is Mysterious Person A."

"It is clearly not-" Gilbert began to say, but Matthew kicked his shin. "Ow!" He complained, rubbing his leg in pain.

"Right, so it is Mysterious Person A." Matthew said cheerfully, sending a warning look over towards Gilbert. "What about this person?"

"I mean, it's not a crush." Kristian back-pedalled, already regretting his decision on telling his friends. "It's like… I'm very fond of Nik- Mysterious Person A. But I don't think I'm ready to have a relationship, or anything. Besides, they probably don't even like me that way."

"If you're not sure this… person, likes you, than you should try asking them out on a date." Kaoru said sagely. "It's noncommittal compared to a declaration of love."

"Um…" Kristian looked at his friends sheepishly. "I've never asked a person out on an official date?"

"You haven't?!" Gilbert yelled, looking aghast. "What the hell have you been doing all these years?"

Memories of lounging on the bed, binge-watching tv shows and eating enormous portions of chocolate flashed through Kristian's head. "I've been… incredibly single?" He said, ending it as a question.

"Okay, so here's how you do it." Gilbert motioned him to come closer, and informed him of a detailed plan. After finishing, Kaoru and Matthew looked at Gilbert skeptically.

"That sounds like a recipe for disaster." Matthew commented worriedly.

"No, no. That sounds alright." Kristian decided, shaking Gilbert's hand as thanks. "I'll follow your instructions!"

"Kristian, I don't think-" Kaoru began, but Gilbert slapped his hand over his mouth.

"Shush." Gilbert hissed, speaking quietly so that only Kaoru and Matthew could hear. "Don't you want to see our young Kristian working hard to woo another person? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"

They all thought about it for a minute, trying to imagine Kristian attempting to win over another person.

"Fine." Matthew sighed. "You bring up a good point. Let's all watch our best friend crash and burn because we are total jerks."

"See?" Gilbert said happily, oblivious to Matthew's sarcastic tone. "Glad we had this talk. Anyway, go get him, Kristian!"

"I'll try." Kristian said, hurrying off. He abruptly turned around, his cheeks the slightest tinge of pink. "And I never said it was a boy!"

Nikolai glanced at his worn-out watch, the little hands indicating that it was fifteen minutes past three. Kristian was oddly late, for once. He pushed his blond hair back in worry, adjusting his cross clip to give his hands something to do.

I hope he didn't get kidnapped, Nikolai thought to himself. What would I do without him? Kristian had, unexpectedly, taken up a large part of his life. He honestly couldn't think about how he was going to spend the rest of the days without the silly, pom-pom haired boy who understood him so well.

"Nikkie!" He heard a voice in the distance, and he turned around, only to be greeted with the sight of Kristian dressed in a distressing outfit full of neon colours, a few cardboard pieces with the words "WILL U GO ON D8 W/ ME" plastered all over, and a rose stem between his teeth.

"Um." Nikolai said.

"Hey!" Kristian spat out the rose and handed him the cardboard sign. "So will you?" Their hands touched briefly, but the contact was enough to send shivers up Nikolai's spine, even with Kristian looking like Elvis on crack.

"Uh… will I what?" Nikolai replied, blinking.

"Go on a d-date with me." Kristian stuttered, looking away shyly. "I mean, I know we've been on a few- well, they're not really dates but we call them that, sometimes, like breakfast and the park and stuff- but will you go on a real. Official. Date. With me. A date with a capital D. Like, not as friends but as um, possibly more than friends. Maybe."

Kristian was greeted with absolute silence, which was probably the worst outcome he could have hoped for. "Well, if you don't want to, we can just forget about this whole thing." Kristian said hurriedly, already wanting to cry. "Sorry if I've made things awkward-"

"No!" Nikolai said, grabbing Kristian's hands. "No. It's fine. I. Well, I accept. I will go on a date with you."

A profusion of happiness welled up within Kristian's chest, and he smiled so hard his cheeks hurt. "Really?" Kristian said excitedly, gripping his hands tightly. "You're not pranking me?"

"No, I'm being sincere." Nikolai said, almost wanting to laugh at the sincere look of joy on the other boy's face. "So… where are you taking me?"

Kristian's delighted expression slowly dissolved into puzzlement. "Sorry, what?"

"Like. Where are we going for our date." Nikolai said slowly.

"Um…" Kristian replied, his complexion paling considerably. "Well… I didn't think I would get this far."

Nikolai was torn between slapping Kristian's face or kissing it.

Amazingly enough I'm still getting reviews now, 6 years after I have first written this story.

I decided to work hard and finish it. This is the least I owe to my loyal readers.

I will probably start writing again!