Hello! Sorry I took so long to update, but FFnet apparently doesn't like me - the moment I tried to upload the new chapter, the document manager gleefully rejected the chapter. -_______- Please don't slaughter me for being so remiss in updating... D:

Oh well, sorry once again, and, um, enjoy?

Recap from previous chapter

"It's a boy, isn't it?"

His pencil lead broke.

"WHAT?!"

"Aha! I thought as much," She nodded her head wisely, as if she had just discovered gravity. "You can tell me, you know. I won't tell anyone. Is it Fuji?"

She thought he was gay.

She thought he was gay and in love with Fuji.

...she was so, so dead.

His eyes narrowed into slits, turning up his glare to laser-beam intensity.

"Maika."

She took one look at him, and gulped. Teasing him might be a favourite pastime of hers, but an extremely pissed off Tezuka Kunimitsu was not something she was quite prepared to handle all the same.

"Let me make this perfectly clear. I am not in love, I am not gay, and I am most definitely not in love with Fuji!"

"Okay, okay, you're not!" She scowled at him. "How was I supposed to know? It's not like you responded to any of the names I said..."

"Maybe because you didn't say it," He suggested acidly.

She perked up immediately, and he groaned. Why couldn't he have kept his big mouth shut?

"So is it someone from Seigaku?"

He sighed and resigned himself to an unwanted game of Twenty Questions, wondering just when he had admitted to himself that he actually liked someone. "Aa."

"Oh! Is she in our year – assuming it's a girl, of course..."

"Yes, she's in our year." He shot her a dirty look, making sure to emphasise the 'she' very clearly.

She thought for a moment. "It's not anybody I mentioned just now?"

Tezuka was stumped for a moment. On one hand, she had mentioned at least three-quarters of the girls in third year already. But then again, what were the odds that she'd remember who she had said?

He decided to be honest. "No."

"Ah," She paused for one blessed moment – and immediately began a barrage of names.

...so much for not remembering.

He listened without interrupting – after all, he could always tell her that she'd missed someone – and she'd probably go crazy trying to find out who she'd skipped.

Now that was a pleasant thought.

Five minutes later...

"But Tezuka... that's all the girls in our form in Seigaku!"

He let out a rare smirk. "Well, you obviously missed someone, then."

"Can we go over the list again? Just to make sure?"

Surely whom he liked couldn't be that intriguing...?

"...I have homework."

"You can listen and study at the same time, can't you? Don't tell me you, the model student of Seigaku, can't multitask." She'd read somewhere that appealing to masculine pride was always the easiest way to get them to agree.

"But you have homework as well," He pointed out, and added for good measure, "Which you're supposed to be doing."

...Tezuka was obviously not a normal specimen of the male species.

But she wasn't going to give this up without a fight. She did stop to wonder for a moment why she wanted to know so much, but told herself firmly that it was just natural curiosity, plain and simple.

Now, if that niggling little voice at the back of her head that kept insisting it was more than that would just do her a favour and shut up.

"Do I know her?"

After three days of constant pestering, he was getting positively annoyed. She had gone through every single girl in their form at least five times, and had now decided to expand the list to the whole female population of Seigaku.

He'd have been greatly amused at her persistence – if it hadn't involved his non-existent love life which, as a matter of fact, she didn't have any business poking her nose into.

The fact that she was the subject of said love life didn't matter at all.

Right.

Great logic, Sherlock. Keep going.

...all that stress must really be getting to him.

He sighed, and tuned back into the lesson. Geography was one of his best subjects, and he really wouldn't want to fall behind just because of a pesky, thoroughly irritating girl.

Risking a quick glance at Maika, he was slightly disturbed to see her studying him speculatively.

He decided he didn't want to know what she was thinking.

The moment the period was over, she leaned over and whispered into his ear, "It's Akita-sensei, isn't it?"

Tezuka was suddenly attacked by a violent coughing fit, causing Oishi to rush over in motherly concern.

Really. There were just some things he'd have been better off not knowing.

Maika put her book down. She'd been staring at the same page for half an hour, and if she didn't do something soon, she'd go crazy.

But what was there to do?

She swept the room with a glance, and brightened when she saw the magnificently carved wooden door on her left. With a few skips and a hop added in for good measure, she reached the door and threw it open.

"Say, Atobe, do you know what's the – "

And abruptly stopped.

There, frozen a mere three feet away from her in utter shock, was Atobe Keigo – clad in nothing but a fluffy white towel that barely covered – well, covered.

Her scream brought all the maids running in time to witness the amazing sight of their young master flushing to the roots of his hair, desperately trying to cover what should never be exposed to public while his enemy-cum-love interest (it was a longstanding joke among the staff that if they were to get married, all the wedding furniture would be torn to shreds within the first week of the honeymoon) yelled bloody murder.

He would never really be able to keep up the arrogant, I'm-better-than-you manner in front of Maika again. Not when his pride as a man was so viciously trampled upon and crushed into the dust.

"That man is a total exhibitionist," seethed Maika, blissfully ignoring the fact that she was the one who had entered without knocking in the first place. "Didn't anyone teach him how indecent it is to walk around with such a precariously-placed piece of cloth? It very nearly fell off!"

Her cheeks were flaming, and she really didn't want to think what could have happened if it had fallen.

"It wouldn't have been that bad, now would it?" She jerked upwards at the unmistakably male voice of said culprit.

Atobe Defence Mechanism No. 1: Peacock the whole situation out. Remember, everyone loves you!

"...you did not just say that."

"What? Come on, admit it! My body is the epitome of manhood – "

She couldn't believe it. "My virgin eyes have just been subjected to torture, and now you want to defile my ears as well?!"

"What torture? I'll have you know that most girls would kill to be in your place!"

"Well, I'd kill to have them take my place!" She huffed.

His eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to suggest that I'm repulsive?"

Atobe Defence Mechanism No. 2: Rhetoric. It's a politician's best friend, and it actually works. Well, on normal people, that is.

"I – "

"Revolting? Disgusting? Nauseating?"

Much to his horror, she actually stopped and gave him an appraising look.

"Well..." She pondered.

"You're not supposed to have to think about such questions!" Atobe spluttered indignantly. Was she mocking his body – his perfect, sculpted body? Oh, the horror! Blasphemy!

"...not quite nauseating, but maybe..." Her tone definitely held a hint of mischief now.

What could be worse than being 'not quite nauseating' anyway? She couldn't degrade him any further than she already had.

Oh, he was so, so wrong.

"...average?"

"WHAT?!"

Maika heard the door slam and grinned. So he still wasn't over that 'average' insult yet. Really, you'd have thought that with such a huge ego, it'd be impossible for someone to even dent it. But no, Atobe's ego was like an inflatable balloon – you just had to know where to poke it, and then voila! All you had to do was to sit back, and watch it deflate.

It was such fun annoying Atobe.

Although nothing could beat infuriating Tezuka, of course.

...Tezuka.

Who liked someone, and was getting more and more short-tempered each time he saw her.

She winced, remembering his curt reply to her the day before at school. Although, technically speaking, that had been mostly her fault, since she had been pressing him once again on the subject of his love life.

And of course, talking about Atobe probably didn't help matters much, since their tennis teams were always going head-to-head in some competition or other.

...but still.

It seemed like Tezuka was perpetually grumpy these days. And besides, she really did want to know who he liked – not just because being a busybody was something to liven up the monotony of school, but because she had a vested interest in it.

...as his friend, of course.

Well, duh. What else would it be as?

On second thought, don't answer that question.

Back to topic. How was she going to get Tezuka to be, well, to put it simply, less grumpy again?

Of course, one easy way would be to drop the whole love life topic altogether, but she was quite incapable of doing that, due to said vested interest.

So.

Say sorry to him and continue pestering anyway?

He'd probably fix me with that terror-inducing glare of his, and perhaps bring some earplugs the next day.

Drag him out to relax, and ply him with wine until he finally told her who he liked?

Now that would be an interesting sight to behold. Except, of course, for the insignificant little detail that Tezuka wouldn't even touch alcohol.

So that was out. What else?

Drive him to distraction until he reached his breaking point and annihilated her?

She sighed. None of her suggestions were even remotely workable, and the one person who could help her – well, let's just say she was on an "Avoid Fuji" mission ever since that supremely awkward incident on the roof.

Oh well, let's just hope I don't get frostbite tomorrow from sitting next to Tezuka.

Tezuka, meanwhile, was having problems of his own, courtesy of a certain tensai.

Fuji had called him out to the library with the pretext of wanting to study together, since the 'alien from St. Rudolph', as Fuji so kindly put it, was apparently systematically trying to destroy his brain cells by aggravating him to high heaven.

"If Yuuta hadn't been there, I'd have – "

"I'll meet you there," Tezuka interrupted, and hurriedly put down the phone. The one thing he patently did not want to do was to listen to Fuji's evil, evil plans for the slow and agonising murder of that hapless manager. He'd had the privilege of being privy to the tensai's plots once, and that particular image had taken the better half of a year to stop haunting his dreams.

Really. You'd think Fuji could put his brain to better use than churning up graphically horrifying scenes of torture and destruction.

So anyway. Here he was, sitting in the library with Fuji.

Except, of course, that Fuji wasn't studying.

At all.

What he had evidently come out here to do was to shake his head at Tezuka, and sigh desolately as if all hope was lost forever.

Tezuka, for his part, was getting more and more annoyed by all the weird, unexplainable noises coming his way. After ignoring it for the better part of an hour, he finally put down his book sharply and turned to face Fuji.

"What?"

The pair of blue eyes brightened, as if they had been waiting an eternity for his signal. And then they narrowed.

Tezuka became just slightly worried.

"Well?"

"...well what?" Fuji's voice was positively dripping with innocence.

"You obviously have something you want to say," Tezuka pointed out blandly. Two could play at this game. He hadn't been Fuji's best friend for the past three years for nothing, after all.

"And what makes you think that?"

"I don't know... maybe the hundred or more so sighs you've let out in the past hour?"

Fuji quirked an eyebrow. "Indeed. You're very observant, Tezuka. I was beginning to think you might be deaf."

He had obviously forgotten that Fuji was a very dangerous opponent with an extremely sharp tongue.

He decided to go with the obvious. "Well, I'm not."

"So I see." The honey-haired tensai smiled blindingly.

The silence began to stretch unnervingly long.

Finally, Fuji broke it.

"So, Tezuka." He laced his fingers together before propping up his chin on them. Tezuka was vaguely reminded of a spider waiting for a fly to get caught in his web, and shifted just an inch further away from Fuji.

"How's Maika?"

"...what?" The unexpected question threw him somewhat off-kilter. What did she have to do with all this, anyway?

Fuji beamed down angelically at him.

Tezuka took the hint.

"She's... okay, I guess."

"Ah." Was Fuji's contribution. "And you?"

Tezuka was beginning to think that the tensai might perhaps actually have lost his mind, and was just about to point out that he was obviously very well, thank you, apart from the fact that he was being driven to distraction by a certain blue-eyed boy who absolutely refused to leave him in peace – when he remembered The Kiss.

And suddenly Fuji's motives became crystal clear.

"Fine, thank you." The answer was crisp and curt.

You are NOT prying any information about her out of me.

Fuji blinked. Was Tezuka actually... jealous?

Wow. That was slow. Even by emotionally stunted human standards, that was really slow.

If it hadn't been for the fact that Tezuka was right in front of him, and that cackling aloud to himself might get him kicked out of the library and being labeled a madman, he could've clapped his hands in glee. But none of these things could be done, so his smile merely grew the tiniest bit wider.

"So when are you going to confess to her?"

"I – what?!"

Fuji grinned. It paid to be obvious, especially if you had a reputation of being subtle.

"She's not going to be sitting next to you forever, Tezuka. How about a bouquet of roses? Or maybe serenade her with a song..."

Five minutes later, Fuji walked out of the library with a supremely unamused Tezuka in tow, having gotten them kicked out by causing Tezuka to erupt in a spectacular fashion.

"Denial, denial... are there any other excuses you'd like to offer before I help you plan your confession?"

Tezuka, who had decided some time ago that he'd much rather sew his lips shut than give Fuji even the tiniest hint that he liked Maika, merely pressed his lips into a thin line.

"No? Well then, shall we make a trip to the florist?" Fuji's smile was absolutely blinding.

Tezuka was this close to annihilating Fuji on the spot.

"Fuji. Go. Now."

Fuji apparently knew better than to risk a double explosion of his captain's wrath, because a piece of paper was swiftly pressed into said captain's hand, and Fuji was off with a cheery wave before Tezuka could even blink.

Then again, maybe not.

It was well for Fuji that he was three streets away by the time Tezuka had the presence of mind to read the paper, on which the following words were printed in – the very word made Tezuka cringe, but there was no way around it – excessively cute font:

Flowers for your loved ones? Call 013-xxxxxxx! Our personal consultants will coach you in the language of these beautiful blossoms!

And in Fuji's neat handwriting:

P/S: Roses are cliched, try violets. Or cacti. Actually, forget the violets. Cacti would probably be the best choice. You do kind of resemble a cactus yourself, you know.

"FUJI."

The passers-by might be forgiven for giving the tall young man a very wide berth – especially since he was currently planning the horrific murder of a certain blue-eyed boy in ways too gruesome to imagine.

Boy, was Fuji ever going to get it in tennis practice tomorrow.

Credits: One of the lines up there is from Isaac Asimov's Foundation.

Review? :)