Authors Note: Happy Fourth of July everyone! This chapters slightly shorter. I've been celebrating my birthday and having parties But I promise the next few chapters are gonna make up for it. It's just starting to get juicy! Hope you all read and Review. Thanks for the support.

A date - how the hell did Onodera get himself into these situations all the time? At that exact moment Onodera was sitting besides Takano the both of them were dressed pretty snazzy for the special evening but Takano had refused to even give Onodera the slightest of clue on where exactly they were going. He didn't really have much time to object to the offer of the date either. He sat there on the train his palm pressed against his forehead allowing his fingers to brush against the short hairs of his bangs. He couldn't believe he actually went along with this little plot of Takano's. He must be coming down with a cold or something to just go along with it.

It was early in the morning when Onodera heard his cell phone repeating its ringer on and on again. He had once again found himself falling asleep on the floor because of his bed being covered in different articles of clothing both clean and unclean, it was getting harder to remember which was which. He really needed one entire day to just pick everything up. This place was really starting to become a dump even for a single guy living by himself. He had just gotten home after that long ride on the train with Takano all he wanted to do was sleep. Even if he had yet to have something for dinner food, that was the very last thing on his mind.

He heard the constant annoying ringing moving his hands out and grabbed the small round couch pillow he had pulled down from the couch and placed it over his ears trying his best to ignore it hoping whoever was on the other end would eventually go away but there was no such luck. Onodera growled low in his throat hearing the constant ringing continuing to buzz away and thanks to this model of phone the ring only seemed to grow louder the more he tried too ignored it.

"Urgh - go away!" Without thinking Onodera reached down underneath the pillow and brought the phone towards his eyes using the free hand to raise upwards rubbing the sleep out of his eyes at the same time. "Takano." At first it wasn't registering properly in his head exactly whose name that belonged too. He yawned moving to sit up straight and cracked the knuckles at the back of his neck with a simple twist of his hands. It was rather hard for his body to continue to sleep on the floor of his apartment. Finally, he caught on. "TAKANO!" The first thought that popped into his head was that it was work related - it had to be right? But then he remembered the whole "date" thing and he suddenly had no desire to answer it. He simply clicked the red power button shutting off the phone.

"No way Takano. No Date for me today."

He thought doing that would be the last of it. Onodera would have the day all to himself first thing on his list of "to-do's" was easy to guess. Onodera grabbed the pillow fluffing it inside his palms before placing it back on the ground and laid back down. He was determined to get a few more hours of shut eye before having to eventually get up and do something productive with his day. His arms folded underneath the down feather pillow and pressed his cheek against it allowing his eyes to find their way closed once more but his silence would be interrupted suddenly.

KNOCK - KNOCK - KNOCK

"If that's him - I swear to god." Onodera was going to ignore the sounds coming from the other side of the room but it wasn't going away the way he had hoped for. He shut his eyes tightly still attempting to not listen to the knocking on the other side but, like the phone, it only seemed to grow louder. The light knocks turned into thundering pounds against the wooden structure and you could tell with each pound a small twitch was beginning to grow in size at the side of Onoderas head.

"Grr! That's it!"

Onodera stood to his feet in a hurry brushing down the shirt he was wearing, since it had naturally been slightly pulled upwards during his tosses and tussles on the floor. As soon as he got home last night he stayed up long enough to actually change out of Dante's clothes and into a plain shirt and a set of his blue PJ bottoms. He had hoped to stay up a little late so that way he could fix some of the storyboard but his eyelids seemed to get so heavy he found himself passing out on the floor. God, if it was Takano - he was going to get it.

After pressing his hands down against the floor he moved pulling up to his feet easily and than turned walking towards the door as he rose his hand upwards and scratched at his scalp brushing his fingers against his sloppy hair. He really wasn't in the mood to go out with him today - or ever for that matter. As fair as he was concerned he was done with Takano after high school. But it seemed that Takano wasn't getting that message after being well - sexual assaulted all those previous times. What was it going to take to get through to this guy?

Oh well, he took in a deep breath deciding to just give up and turned those green eyes towards Takano. There seemed to be a self confident shine twinkling in those dark eyes of his as he stared straight ahead. Takano seemed to be focusing on where they were suppose to be getting off. Good - one of them needed to know where they were going and since he was refusing to tell Onodera he was just going to have to pay attention to all the street signs himself. But Onodera couldn't help but feel slightly anxious on where they were headed too and why he was trying to keep it this big secret. Onodera didn't want to admit it but he was maybe slightly curious on what kind of date Takano had planned for the two of them. It had really been a long time since the two were out a lone romantically. He had a small tinkle of excitement run along his body just imagining what he was possibly setting up. He found himself closing his eyes cursing at himself for evens slightly being anxious over this day. What really seemed to stick out however in his mind was the way Takano had managed to so easily rope him into attending and going along with his one man kidnapping scheme.

"How did I get myself into this again?"

By the time Onodera had reached the door he had been silently praying that Takano had given up and simply went on home but after taking one small peak through the peak whole in his apartment door he found that very man standing right there being impatient as ever but never seeming to waver on leaving. He really didn't know when to give up did he? He watched the man glance at his own expensive black wrist watch and remove the glasses from his face before proceeding to bang against the door once more three separate times.

"I know your in there Onodera your not getting out of this date. Open the door before I find away to bust it down." Yup, he wasn't going away anytime soon. Onodera had turned around pressing his back against the wooden frame. Did he really want to do this? Did he really want to chance falling even deeply for him? He had little choice. His boss wasn't leaving - he wasn't going any where. Okay - so he decided he was opening the door. Here goes nothing. Onodera leaned off the door gathering one last huge breath before spinning back around and opening the door to spot the dark haired devil standing there before him. Now he tried not to make it plainly clear but Takano was dressed pretty handsome for a casual date. A pair of dark black blue jeans that fit loose around his legs but still helped show off his lengthy limbs and a dark blue long sleeve button down shirt with a black vest left unbuttoned accompanied by his usual jacket he had worn yesterday the man was good enough to stick on one of those male modeling magazines.

"Takano - this date is a silly idea. Why don't we just forget it?" Onodera was about to close the door but Takano had experience with this little defense move he pulled. Takano moved his hand, not bothering to think about if Onodera closed the door on his hand, and pressed it in between the doors edge and the frame that would surely keep him locked was no way he was going to let Onodera slip through his fingers once again.

"Onodera. I told you we're going on a date today and that's exactly what your doing. You've got twenty minutes to get ready or -" He leaned his head in closer so his face was inches away from his young editors. Those mysterious filled orbs locking on with Onoderas own and showed a small grin out of pure amusement when he saw the blush cross Onoderas face especially when he realized how close he truly was. "Do I need to come in there and scrub your back for you?"

Was he serious! Onodera immediately lost his footing as he stumbled backwards therefore, opening his apartment entirely to Takano. He scrambled back on his butt, feet and hands until his back hit the wall behind them. Takano had taken this rare opportunity to sneak further inside gently closing the door behind him to keep the heat in the small apartment inside and to block Onoderas path incase he tried to make his escape.

"N-No I don't need your h-help Takano. Just stay right there."

And with lightening like speed, maybe the fastest Takano had ever seen Onodera move, he grabbed a change of clothing from his room and immediately dipped into his bathroom making point to lock this door with the double lock - just in case Takano got any silly ideas in his head. Oh man - he was screwed. Well he couldn't do anything else he was literally stuck in between a rock and a hard place. Onodera sighed removing his shirt and than leaned over turning the shower on beginning to warm up the water.

Takano could hear the running water through the door in the living room. Good - things always seemed to go more smoothly when Onodera just listened to his own voice of reason. He was going to make sure this would be one day that he would never forget. Takano really wanted to make it something special. Suddenly the memory of what Dante had said yesterday snuck back into his brain. He clenched his fist tightly trying not too let it get to him but he really couldn't help it. He wasn't going to let Dante get his hands on Onodera. Takano had to be honest with himself - he knew partly he was doing this so Onodera wouldn't be able to get "called back" to Dante's residents and happen to "spend the night" there or anything. There just wasn't something right with that author and he was going to make sure to check him thoroughly.

His feet began to allow him to slightly move about Onoderas place avoiding the piles of clothing and cheap covenant store take-out boxes. There was absolutely no way Onodera was getting a decent amount of sleep here. It looked like something out of one of those frat-boy college movies or something and Onodera was far from being a frat-boy. After stepping over a pile of clothing here, a pile of trash and plastic cups there - he saw something he wasn't expecting.

"What do we have here?"

He leaned down snagging up a fairly large book and rubbed his palm against the front cover removing the slight cover of dust that had build up and saw the bright gold words that read "Picture Album" across the front cover. He had never seen pictures of Onoderas father, the head of the famous Onodera Publishing company, ironic enough. Now that he thought of it, he had never seen pictures of any one in his family. His fingertips grasp the bottom edge of the photo album and pulled it open what he was expecting to find, wasn't what happened to be placed on the pages inside. He was surprised to find various pictures of himself in high school, naturally a majority of them taken from the library.

"Woah."

He turned one page slowly on the second page this time there happened to be a few small photos of the two together for the short amount of time they dated. It brought a heart warming smile to Takanos lips. He could recall all the moments he shared with Onodera all those years ago. They were forever imprinted on his brain and he never wanted to get rid of them. He lightly turned the next page and his heart seemed to almost stop in his chest. They were photos of a much younger Onodera sitting on his fathers shoulder, or at least he was assuming that it was his father since the two had similar features. He must have looked more like his mother but there was this certain look Onodera would give him that he could tell he got from his father because of the look his father had in the photograph.

"So that's where you get that look from Ritsu." His eyes seemed to focus on the photo for a while longer unable to hear Onodera slipping up behind him after having taken his shower and was busy toweling drying his hair when he noticed that Takano had found the album - he had actually forgotten where he placed it in the mist of this gigantic mess.

"What are you doing?"

The abrupt voice caught Takano completely off guard. His hands directly closed the two sides of the photo album together listening to the soft "clap" that bounced off the inside of the walls. He spun around attempting to hide the book of photos behind his back and still keep that "cool guy" attitude. The last thing he wanted was for Onodera to find him snooping around his apartment out of curiosity. He didn't need to look like a stalker or anything.

"Onodera. You ready?"

Ritsu couldn't resist slightly arching an eyebrow as his hands continued to rub the towel against the strands of his hair trying to get it as dry as he could muster without having to break out a blow dryer. But he didn't expect to see Takano looking through something so private to him or trying to hide it behind his back. Onodera had chosen a pair of lighter blue jeans and a button down red, white and black plaid shirt along with his second jacket since the other was still soaked since he had a small brain fart and forgot to dry it out when he got home last night.

"You know - usually its considered impolite to go snooping through your co-workers belongings." He mumbled the words as he descended to the couch. His fingertips continued to roughly scrub the fabric at his scalp just about done with getting his thick strands completely or at least mostly dry.

"Yes you maybe right. But when you wont tell me anything about yourself a desperate man will go do desperate measures to learn about the man he loves."

There he goes again saying the "L" word. Did he really have to start that this early in the morning? Couldn't he at least have coffee before he was tossed at with a love confession so easily? He still envied how easy it was for Takano to be so opened and honest. But it still was the last thing he wanted to hear right now.

"Don't start that again. This is just two friends going out - to a place - having some lunch - and possibly some sort of enjoyment afterwards. And not that kind of enjoyment either. Not that my mind was going in that direction. Oh you know what I mean." Just getting all his words messed up he couldn't resist the blush that crossed his face. Takano always seemed to have this affect on him.

Takano had tossed the book down gently onto the pile of nearby articles of clothing hoping that it would avoid Onodera bringing the subject up any further but when he heard Ritsu talking about the "not-date" they were going to be having. Now that was amusing. Takano smirked along his lips as he saw the blush on Ritsus face and than shifted his body slightly. He brought his hands up stuffing them inside his jeans pockets keeping his eyes on Onodera.

"Oh - so your talking about a date then? That is what you described."

Onodera stumbled with his footing he was barely able to keep up right as he turned not saying anything about Takanos little smart remark and disappeared into the bedroom so he could slip onto his tennis shoes and laced up the laces as he than would walk back out into the main room and dropped down onto the couch. He decided to go ahead and not say anything to Takanos little witty remark. "So are we going or what?"

"Oh naturally." Victory! Takano had won again.

"Oh yeah that's how." With any luck this day would be over a lot quicker than he hoped. The young editor let out a slow breath from his lips as he leaned backwards pressing his back against the cushion on the chair of the train right as Takano turned his eyes down towards him. He was guessing they had finally reached the correct stop because he felt Takanos palm reach out and lightly grasp the space above his knee giving it a soft squeeze. Which in turn made Onodera slightly jumpy - can you blame him? Every time he seemed to touch Onodera he was pushed against walls, couches, floors - you name it.

"It's our stop next." Takanos voice had a teeny hint of excitement and joy. Onodera could tell the different between this voice and the tone he used at work everyday, especially when he was lecturing his editors that worked under him about meeting deadlines, getting to the printers on time, etc. etc. It was almost reassuring him that he was going to actually enjoy today - Onodera was almost starting to believe it himself. He faintly nodded his head right as the train pulled into the station and came to a slow bu steady stop and Taakano took the chance to stand upright to his feet and offered a helping hand out to Onodera.

"Come on Ritsu. Let's go. This is where we need to get off."

Could he really do this? Could he really have a nice date with Takano without thinking of the past or of Yokozawa? Would he really be able to just let go of the past the two had shared with one another and just have fun? Onodera pushed the ideas from his head deciding that - just this once, he was going to have fun. Onodera put a kind smile across his face as he moved reaching his hand out and pressed his palm into Takanos opened hand.

"All right."