A/N: Haaaaa… I apologize. Not only has it been a while but I said this'd be up last week… er- the week before last… My bad.

But here's a new chapter now, so don't hate me too hard c:! Thanks so much for reading and sticking with it despite my sudden lack of updates. Your reviews mean so much to me, so keep them coming.

I updated a few things in the other chapters. Reread them if you wish, but really all I changed were a few words here and there and the time of the vacation. His family is now only gone for a month, but he's stuck in Tokyo on a six month lease for his apartment.

If you have any suggestions or ideas, let me know.

Waste Some Time

Chapter 5

The Rose's Thorn

The sky was beautiful, Kaoru decided. The depth of it, the swirling of clouds here and there, moving in the slightest breeze. The warmth it provided with the glow of the sun, they way it turned darker as it fell through the sky. Even in comparison to the perfectly pixeled one of The World, the beauty of the real sky just held so much more.

It wasn't until his coworker came out to drag him back inside that he realized he'd spent the whole of his break just eyeing the beauty overhead. He stood from the outside table and snuck back inside, taking a moment to readjust to the artificial light it had to offer. Minoru had certainly picked out the best place for him to work.

His eyes fell toward the tables where the few patrons they had were scattered throughout, laptops open and putting the wifi their little shop had to offer to full use. He smiled to himself as he tucked himself back behind the counter, glancing up at the clock on the wall. It was just past 3. In 30 minutes Ryou would be getting out of school, and at about ten til he'd be getting online.

He sighed, leaning against the counter and resting his chin on his hand. If there was one thing he really loved about this job, it was the agreement on hours. He started right when Ryou got to school his shift was over by 4. Despite this amazing luck, he found himself disheartened that he lost the whole 10 minutes with the boy.

As the schools started letting out, the Shot in the Dark Café started getting swept up in business.

A pack of girls walked in, chatting animatedly amongst themselves until they reached the counter and laid eyes on him. "Hah? I don't remember you here last term. Are you new?" one of them asked pleasantly, eyeing darting from him to her phone as she typed away on it.

"I am. I started a few weeks ago, actually."

"How long do you plan to stay here?" she had a grin now, fingers stilled on the pads, attention focused on the screen.

He blinked before the response tumbled awkwardly out, "At least six months." He had a sheepish little grin on his lips and she seemed to appreciate that.

There was a flash from her phone and he looked at it in confusion for a moment before remembering that they had cameras on them. She shot him an innocent smile and snapped her phone closed. "Ah, well I'm glad we got another cute one working here," she said warmly before she and her friends ordered. When they walked away to sit at one of the tables, it left him with a light blush on his cheeks.

And they weren't the only ones that were apparently regulars during school. By 3:40 there were plenty of others who had come in and eyed him and asked him similar questions. They were all friendly enough, which left him feeling relatively welcome to the environment. It wasn't until the next wave of students came in that he really took the time to remember one of their faces, however.

He looked up from his latest served customer with a smile for the next when he froze up. There stood a red-faced teen with brown hair and dark mahogany eyes, looking decidedly out of place before him. When their eyes met, to his total surprise, he felt the familiar flutter of butterflies in his stomach.

They stared each other down in silence for a moment, one obviously feeling as out of place as he looked, the other stunned by his body's reaction, until Kaoru realized he was supposed to speak first.

"Ah-! Welcome to the Shot in the Dark Café. What can I get for you?" he asked, his voice wavering a little, not as strong as it had been when he greeted the other patrons.

The brunette blinked, looking around suddenly to one of the chalkboard menus. "A daily special…" he said quietly, his voice just loud enough to be heard.

"Yes, coming right up!" Kaoru said hurriedly, turning and getting right to work on getting the cup ready. As he started filling the cup with their special brew, his eyes drifted back to the student; for he was definitely a student if that uniform was anything to go by. He'd gathered by listening to the other students that his uniform belonged to a school just a couple blocks down the road. He glanced back to the cup in his hand just in time to stop it from overflowing and poured a little out to make room for the rest of the fixings.

He moved down the line and grabbed the caramel and chocolate and whipped cream and the- he forgot what that white stuff was called- to pour in. When it looked pretty enough in his eyes, he turned and set it lightly before the student, eyeing him again. They were just about the same height, he noted, looking at the register. "That'll be 800¥," he read, looking quickly to the boy again.

Their eyes met once more before the boy quickly fumbled for the money and just about shoved it into his hand, taking the cup and turning tail to leave without another word. As he turned right just outside the door, he glanced over, face just as red as it had been when he walked in, and looked right at him. He made a face and took off, leaving Kaoru with a hammering heart and a fluttering stomach.

The last ten minutes went by uneventfully, leaving him plenty of time to consider his reaction to the boy by the time he hung his apron up and stepped outside with a wave for his coworker.

It didn't make sense to him. The only other time he'd felt that was whenever Ryou said something unintentionally sweet or when he earned one of Haseo's smiles. As he entered his apartment building, he froze in the doorway. The only reason that happened was because he had a very serious crush on Ryou. And that had to mean he was developing one on this kid too. He quickly headed up the stairs and to his apartment, fumbling with the keys and shutting it with his back once he was safely inside.

It was quiet, only the sound of cars driving by two floors below met him here in his sanctuary, only the low mumble of talking next door. He changed into more comfortable clothing, moving over to sit before his laptop. He turned it on and checked his male before logging into the world, headset in hand.

This was crazy. He hadn't even gotten to know the kid yet, there was no way it was a crush He'd barely even spoken to him. But he couldn't deny the attraction, he was a very good looking guy. A little concerned that the thought was still so stuck in his head, he brushed it off, letting the headgear blind his eyes to the troubles of the real world.

.....

The pair of them had managed to fight their way to the lower levels of one of the temple fields before the issue returned to the forefront of Kaoru's mind once more. They'd cornered the last monster of the battle, Blade and gun raised to take it out when Haseo took it out with a blinding flourish. As the battle arena dissipated around them, the avatar turned to face him with a broad, excited grin. It brought the butterflies back.

"Did you see that?" he asked excitedly, grinning down to his blade guns proudly before letting them vanish. "I love the new finishing moves they added with this new patch!" The positively nerdy excitement drew a fond smile upon Kaoru's lips as well as Endrance's.

"Yes, and in a couple levels we can probably breeze through one of the night temple fields with the new weapons in the statue rooms."

"Kaoru." He said seriously, still grinning from ear to ear as they headed toward the last room in this temple. "I don't think we should wait any more levels. I need to get my hands on those guns before everyone else!" his excitement was contagious and the butterflies gave another impatient flutter as the boy turned back from the chest to approach him, gifting him with a new long sword.

"I'll follow you anywhere, Ryou," he said in a soft voice, eyeing him tenderly.

The Terror of Death looked a little taken aback, hesitating before turning toward the portal. The party leader quickly pressed the right buttons and they were off to a new field.

They went through all of their health potions by the time they were down to the second to last level of the temple. If it wasn't for the time last Christmas that Haseo had given him a Repth scroll and insisted that he learn the spell, they wouldn't have made it all the way to the end. Kaoru had almost suggested that they turn back at that point, but the excitement was back on Haseo's face when they reached the staircase to the bottommost floor.

As they entered one of the last rooms they found four different sets of monsters awaiting them. They took out the first group before Kaoru breeched the subject that had been weighing on his mind all night. He wanted to know the boy's thoughts on it.

"Haseo," he began as the Terror lead the way toward the next batch of monsters, preparing a sneak attack. "I… I think I'm developing a crush."

There was an awkward moment of silence that passed between them and it took a moment before he realized why. He hadn't exactly taken any steps to hide the way he felt about Ryou, even though he had never come right out with a confession. He fretted for a few seconds to come up with a way to say that he wasn't talking about the one he obviously had on him before the other hit a button and they both flew into a battle.

This one took a little longer and if it hadn't been for the Phoenix Down in Endrance's inventory, they probably would've lost all those recent experience points. Haseo leveled at the end and Kaoru allowed him a few moments to allot the status points before addressing the topic again.

"I served a boy at work today and I haven't been able to stop thinking about him," he clarified.

"Did you get to talk to him?" Haseo's voice sounded strained. He still looked a little uncomfortable, oddly enough.

"I… No. Not more than to ask him what he wanted."

Haseo nodded, heading toward the next battle area. "Well you can't exactly 'like' somebody you don't know, can you?" he asked, looking over at Endrance.

"No, I guess you can't. He was very cute, though…"

Again they were thrown into a battle before their health replenished, ambushing a very large monster and two smaller flying things this time. They didn't have quite as much trouble this time with one of them a level higher, but it wasn't a cake walk, either.

When the monsters fell, Kaoru frowned, Endrance approaching Haseo. "Ryou, are you okay?" he questioned worriedly.

The younger waved off his concern. "I'm fine, I'm just getting tired. I haven't really gotten used to my school schedule again." Kaoru lifted his headset for a moment and looked at the watch his sister had mailed him a few days ago. It was getting pretty late." When it fell safely over his face again he looked around for his party leader again. He was headed for the last battle of the room.

"Ah~ I didn't realize how late it was getting. I shouldn't have kept you so late last night!"

Haseo shook his head immediately. "It isn't your fault. I think this should be our last temple tonight though. We'll have to hit the others tomorrow." He looked less than pleased about that, but school came first.

They took out the final battle of the temple with only a little trouble, Endrance leveling this time with a grin. He added everything into Strength and set to following Haseo toward the statue room.

As the boy closed the chest his face was one of shock. "This isn't a blade gun…" He didn't sound any less awed. "This is one of the best blades I've seen in this game. It binds on contact, you you'd better take it out."

Kaoru clicked on the chest curiously and his jaw fell open when he read the stats. "The 'Black Thorn?' I didn't really look at the stats of the new weapons they released. Are they all this good?" he asked breathlessly, taking the weapon and immediately equipping it. He summoned the blade immediately and they both looked at it closely. It was extremely thin and pretty long, black-bladed with strange symbols scrawled along the hilt, white wrappings coiled neatly around it, frayed at the ends and falling from the blade when he swung it.

It was gorgeous.

"If this is what we have to look forward to tomorrow, those last thirty minutes are going to be hell…" he grumbled as they started approaching the warp point.

Back in town it took everything he had not to summon his weapon again just to look at it. If it weren't for having to work tomorrow, he would be off to a new field to test it out. He saved quickly and turned toward Haseo, who was looking at him sheepishly.

"I forgot. Tomorrow I have some things to take care of. Both at school and after. I won't be able to get online until late for a few days. I would only have a little while, so there really isn't a point to getting online. But how about on Thursday we skip out on our responsibilities and pull an all-nighter?" he suggested.

Kaoru felt the disappointment pool in his stomach but smiled at the thought of how great an all-nighter would be. "That would be great. I can't wait." He said with a grin.

"Good night, Kaoru." Haseo smiled again, waving before gating out.

"Good night, my love."