A/N: And now... I slumber.

Goodnight, enjoy the chapter, drop a review or two, eat, sleep, drink, be merry, play golf, light stuff on fire and blame your younger brother/sister/cousin, and don't forget to hug a dinosaur! Because, as we all know, dinosaurs have feelings too!

(Light P.O.V)

Our cloud kept growing the more effort we put into taking care of it. In a sense, Ryuzaki and I were a great team when it came to equal work. We both shared in the hard labour, we both documented our shares of the work, split everything equally in the weeks. We worked well together.

And the more time I spent with him, the more I got to know him.

And the more we got to know each other, the more we hung around each other.

Which meant the more we hung out, the more time he spent with my friends…

With our friends.

It took a few days, barely, but everyone was enjoying his company now in school. We all usually sat together, we hung out at my place a few times, and even my sister wanted to hang around him. I couldn't explain it, but we all just… liked him.

But above all else… I liked him.

I was never really one for making new friends. In fact Mikami and Takada were still relatively new and so I was still a little mistrustful of them. But with Ryuzaki… things were different.

Whenever I wasn't by his side I felt lonely, and whenever we were together I never wanted to leave his company. There was something about him that I liked that I had no knowledge of. But every time I looked at him, my chest tightened and my stomach flipped. I'd never felt this with anyone else in my life, but I didn't want to feel it with anyone else.

But… why? What was it I was feeling?

I contemplated this while Miss Tycho continued on with her Drama lesson. I hadn't known what we were doing until I saw everyone get up for some reason.

I followed Ryuzaki who had been paying attention.

"So what are we doing?" I whispered.

He shrugged. "She said something about dancing."

I shuddered at this. I was not in the mood to dance with anyone today. Especially people from my fan base around school. Lord only knows Misa and Takada were going to start scrapping over who danced with me today.

I sighed to myself. "Just what I needed. Let's just hope this is interpretive dance."

"Wrong, Mr. Yagami!" Miss Tycho announced. "I'm going to be asking all of you to do the Waltz."

I groaned as I hesitantly looked over to Misa and Takada who were eyeing me happily. I was beginning to think about making a run for it when the teacher started giggling.

"But you won't be dancing under any normal circumstances!" She hopped over to her chair and sat down, smiling happily. "As a trust exercise, I want the girls to pair with girls, and the boys with boys!"

There was a lot of argument to this from the male side until Tycho gave her reason.

"Men, if you cannot trust each other to Waltz, then you cannot trust each other to do a scene together. Remember, women were once not allowed to perform in plays. Everything was done by men. And yes, this included love scenes. I'm being generous here and only making you dance. Surely you can leave your pride at the door for one dance."

I felt my stomach flip at this, not from nervousness… but excitement. My immediate partner was Ryuzaki, considering I really had no one else at the moment, but the moment I realized we'd be dancing a waltz together… I froze.

I would be dancing with Ryuzaki?

My stomach flipped again, but this time in defiance. "Wait a minute, what?!"

The dark haired man looked at me as we faced each other to dance. "What is it, Light? Have you never danced before?"

I blinked. "There's that… and the fact I have to dance with another male!"

"You seemed alright with it when Miss Psycho announced it."

I almost smiled at the nickname but realized I was angry. "Ryuzaki, it isn't correct. Males dancing with other males… it's just weird!"

I looked around the room and could only see a few females that weren't awkward about this. Everyone else was either distancing themselves, or trying to find a way out of dancing. I could understand their pain. Although… it's not like my partner was terrible. I just really didn't want to dance with a man.

Ryuzaki didn't seem fazed. "Light, in the days of old some men had to dance with other men to practice their ballroom dancing. This is no different. I agree with Tycho in making us dance in an unprecedented way. Trust is a major issue in the world on stage. If you cannot trust your partner, nor rely on them to catch you when you fall or listen to you, then the show falls flat."

He opened his arms in Waltz position. "Let us begin, Light. If you would care to have this dance."

"Ryuzaki…"

"Do you want to fail, purely because you don't want to dance with another male? Is this really what you want on your report card? Or will you man up, take position, and dance?"

I took a few moments to take in what he said. "How are you so nonchalant about this?"

He shrugged at me. "I've danced with men before. I see no reason why this is an issue. If you would like, I'll take up the female position and you may lead."

The music began to play and everyone shifted awkwardly into an embrace to dance. None of which looked the least bit proper.

I sighed again and took his hand, getting into waltz position. "Let's just get this over with."

"Light, you are not going to dance with that sort of attitude. Man or woman, you must act as though you are enjoying this dance no matter what. And furthermore," he said as he moved my hand from his arm to his waist, "a waltz requires the correct hand placement at all times."

I blinked at him in surprise. "How do you know all this?"

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "I'm from England, Light. This was taught to me when I was eight! That and manners, but I choose to ignore those lessons unless absolutely necessary."

He stood up a bit straighter, a change from his usual hunched form, and relaxed his body.

"The waltz has this simple tempo in mind: One, two, three – one, two, three – one, two, three. I'll lead to start, but once you get the hang of it yourself, you shall lead. Ready?"

I shivered a bit. "I… suppose?"

He started off the dance at the right moment where the music looped and I instantly fumbled a bit. More than once I tripped over my own feet so I constantly looked down to make sure I wasn't messing up. This didn't fit with Ryuzaki's lesson, though.

"Light, keep your eyes on mine and not your feet."

I looked up when he said that…

And got lost in his eyes.

Something about them was… different than beforehand. They seemed full of life and amusement. And that's when I noticed the slight smile on his face. It was like I was truly seeing Ryuzaki for the first time in my life. The part of him that had fun and didn't worry.

He took a patient breath as he stopped us. "Light, calm your mind, and stop thinking about screwing up. Relax the body and follow my lead."

I did as told and stopped worrying about making a fool of myself. "Alright… I trust you."

He took a breath and began the dance again, but this time I kept my eyes focused on his. And in the moments we danced together, I couldn't remember why I'd denied this from happening. There was just something about the way his hand fit into mine, how we managed to move in sync with each other. It was certainly different from all the other times I had to dance in this class. With Misa she had been hugging me the entire time and we barely danced at all, and with Takada or the others I was just terrible at dancing in general with them.

But Ryuzaki…

Maybe I was just losing my mind. Maybe I didn't know any better. But… I liked dancing with him. He knew how to work in sync with me, how to make me better at working on the art of dance. With him… it felt right.

I had been so enraptured by all the thoughts and emotions, I hadn't noticed when I started leading the dance until Ryuzaki smiled at me.

"Well, now." He piped up. "You waltz better than I thought you would."

I noticed the change in the dance and smiled back. "I suppose I'm not as terrible as I thought."

The music ended and everyone broke apart right away. Everyone but us. We broke apart slowly, and almost painfully. To be honest with myself… I'd wanted the music to continue on forever.

But… why?

The bell rang and I immediately realized we'd been waltzing for close to forty-five minutes. There was no way that could have been true. It was way too short to have been that long.

Ryuzaki didn't seem fazed. "Come on, Light. We gotta check on our project. We only have one more week to complete it before spring break."

I shook my head to relieve the fuzziness. "Yeah… I'll, uh… I'll meet you at the doors."

He nodded and left the drama room. As I was grabbing my stuff I felt a hand on my shoulder that made me jump a bit. When I looked back, it was Teri.

"Light," she said quietly, "is there anything you want to talk about? You know… about him?"

"What's there to talk about?" I lied. "It's Ryuzaki. There's not much to him than that."

"Don't lie to me, Light, I saw the way you were looking at him!" She tried.

I shook my head. "No, you don't know what you're talking about. We're friends… science partners. Nothing more."

She sighed heavily. "Light, if you keep to your bubble, you are never going to experience anything good for you. Ryuzaki isn't the most perfect person in the world itself… but he might just be enough in your world."

She soon left the room after that, knowing I wasn't in the mood to listen to her. But… in a way… she was correct. Ryuzaki made me feel things that no one else did. I was happy with him, genuinely happy. But I'd only known him for a few short weeks. What could be there that was so perfect for me? What if I was just seeing things though, and I really didn't have a connection with him? Was there really something there?

Or was I losing it.

My whole life I had been groomed for the perfect life of either a rich bachelor, or perfect husband to a wife and perfect dad to kids. My father made sure I was groomed to perfection… and now I was being tainted.

Maybe I just needed to get away from him. To get away from Ryuzaki. Go on a date with a female and realize what I was without him. I should do that…

And I will.

I was a popular guy among very popular girls. Getting a date would be no problem.