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Beta'ed by aqua-empress.

Disclaimer: I suppose you already know what should be here. Not mine.

On Tuesday morning Ace woke up as per usual, meaning he was literally dragged out of bed by Luffy, who woke up because of Ace's alarm. It worked perfectly for them – Luffy always forgot to set his own and Ace always slept through his. As he stumbled to his bathroom, Ace was barely aware of the surroundings. It was not unusual that he fell back asleep as he brushed his teeth, only to be woken up by Luffy with a cup of coffee in his hands. Coffee was about the only thing Luffy knew how to make and it took him several years to learn.

Ace jumped as Luffy touched his shoulder – he fell asleep standing in the bathroom. He thanked his brother for coffee and, after brushing his teeth, he took the mug from Luffy. Ace was somewhat envious of Luffy – it seemed like the kid only needed to breathe in the coffee aroma to wake up. Ace, on the other hand, needed a full mug of black coffee with a shitload of sugar, because coffee without sugar was just disgusting. Even with sugar and milk, it tasted disgusting, the only reason Ace kept drinking that shit was because it was the only thing that successfully kept him awake. His meds didn't work, although he still took them because he had to.

"Thank God for Marco Polo and coffee…" Ace muttered, as he moved to his bedroom with his mug. "Damn, if he didn't go to China, I'd be screwed by now…"

Ace went to his wardrobe, where his school uniform was hanging. He had several sets of the uniform, because it got dirty often – there was no telling when or where he'd fall asleep, sometimes literally. Ace dressed quickly and went down to the kitchen to make breakfast for himself and Luffy. There weren't many things that Ace thanked God for, but coffee and fridges with electronic locks were two of them. He was the only one in the house, who knew the combination and had a key to open the fridge, for obvious reasons. Despite worshipping food, Ace was well aware of his brother's needs, thus he held himself in check at home.

The breakfast was simple – just a lot of eggs and some bacon (more like a lot of bacon and some eggs). Ace inhaled his before Luffy could finish his own (he really could show this ability off for money) and ran up to his room to get his bag. When he came back, he sent Luffy to get his bag, while he opened the fridge and took out the bentos he prepared yesterday evening – four for Luffy and two for himself. Ace put his bento in his bag and waited for his brother, who, as always, couldn't find his bag.

"Have you checked under the bed?" Ace yelled to Luffy, slowly walking to the door.

"Yes!"

"Then check the living room! Your bento is in the kitchen, don't eat it!" Ace put on his shoes and waited for Luffy, so he could lock the door – his brother's empty head didn't have enough memory to remember it. "Hurry up!"

"Hai!" Luffy yelled back, as he rolled down the stairs and into the living room. From there he ran to the kitchen. "Is it a pirate bento?"

"Yes, it's a pirate bento, Luffy, now move!" Ace rolled his eyes as he waited by the door. He could see the clock in the living room and it showed that they had to get out of the house in the next five minutes.

"Coming!" Luffy sprinted out of the kitchen and came to a sliding stop in front of Ace, dropped on the floor and put on his shoes quickly. "Done!" He ran out the door.

Ace smiled and locked the door and walked after Luffy to the bus stop. It was close and the bus would arrive in about seven minutes, four of them were wasted by walking to the stop. As usual, Luffy, being his cheerful and carefree self, was running in circles around Ace, needing to get the energy out of his system. Ace didn't mind it, he was used to it already and, compared to when Luffy was seven years old, he was a lot less active. The seven year old Luffy had the energy of twenty nuclear reactors and had to be exercised the whole day long. Now, he could actually sit through the lesson, instead of driving his teachers mad with his excess energy.

Personally, Ace was a low-energy type of guy, but he compensated it with enormous stamina that he trained up during his years on mount Corvo. He was better than Zoro, though – when the swordsman wasn't training, he napped wherever he could sit, which annoyed Sanji a lot. Zoro even said once that he'd like to take Ace's narcolepsy off his hands if it was possible, so that he would have a legitimate reason to take a nap in the middle of the day.

The bus came in two minutes earlier than usual and they got on. Since it was an early morning, all the sitting places were taken and there was barely enough place for Ace and Luffy to squeeze in. This was a part of the going to school which Ace hated – being squeezed and getting his feet stepped on. His narcolepsy made it impossible for him to get a driving license and just drive to school, like everyone else his age did.

The ride to school was uneventful, just as usual. Ace sighed, when he got off the bus close to school – he'd have to learn how to levitate soon, or else he us going to break every single bone in his feet. He hated girls on stilettos the most, which was why whenever he had a girlfriend, he asked her to wear normal shoes. Speaking of which, did he have a boyfriend now? Or how does that 'date for a week' thing work? Was he supposed to go on a date with sempai? He'd have to ask Nami, she dated Marco for a week, way back, before she got together with Luffy. Speak of the devil…

"Good morning," said Nami, as she caught up with them.

"Morning," said Ace. In his opinion morning could never be good, not unless you got to sleep through it.

"Hi, Nami!" Luffy hugged Nami, almost strangling her.

"Luffy, get off," Nami said, without any real hostility or annoyance – it was more of a habit now. "I saw the photos yesterday, damn it, Ace, how come you're more popular than me?"

Ace shrugged, as he chuckled – the only reason Nami agreed to modelling for Sabo was because she got to earn money while she hung out with her friends. Plus the fact that they got to keep the clothes Criminal sent them for photo-shoots.

"Maybe because I have more experience in the field?" he said, doubtfully. Ace and Luffy were Sabo's first models, he was taking pictures of them way before Criminal noticed him and even before he got a decent camera. Now, the three of them, unlike before, knew exactly what they were doing in front or behind the camera.

"Not fair!" Nami pouted, but laughed in a second, unable to keep the pout on her face. "I should charge you for spending time with a person as famous as me."

"I think time with Firefish is worth more than with Cat Burglar, so in the end, you'd be paying me," Ace smiled – he was about the only one, beside Robin, who could get out of giving money to Nami. She tried to charge him for taking care of his things during his sleep attacks, but Ace miraculously managed to get out of it by saying that he should charge her for introducing her to Sabo.

"Damn it!" Nami muttered.

Luffy ran off to his classroom already and Ace and Nami were walking leisurely to their classroom, taking their time.

"I heard you got out of the advanced math," Nami noted.

"Yeah, thanks to Aokiji," Ace sighed at the memory of all the horrible hours he spent in that class.

"Congratulations," she mockingly ruffled Ace's hair.

"Thanks," Ace swatted the hand away and tried to comb his hair with his fingers, but all it did was making everything worse. He looked as if there was hurricane outside.

"Come here," Nami sighed in exasperation, as she took out her hair brush and used it on Ace. "Much better. Oh, good morning, sempai."

Ace turned around and saw Marco standing there. Apparently he wanted to go past them, but they blocked the stairs.

"Morning," Ace said warily. Sempai looked like he didn't get any sleep at all and Ace knew, that people who got very little sleep snap easily, so around those people Ace followed Cesar Millan's advice – 'no touch, no talk, no eye contact'. Of course, Cesar meant dogs, but Ace found that it worked perfectly on cranky humans as well. Sometimes, like today, he needed to be polite in order to avoid trouble. He moved away from Nami, making way for Marco, who nodded at them and walked up the stairs.

.

(^_^)

Marco's morning was horrible. He barely got two hours of sleep at night because of certain someone. Of course, he was the one to blame – nobody asked him to look at those photos, but one in particular was burned into his brain. It was a summer picture, people having fun in a swimming pool. In the background, at least. In front there was Ace, getting out of the pool. There were normal stairs there, which mean that Ace's hands were free to do whatever they wanted and they were swiping the wet black hair away from the face, giving a better view of Ace's trained torso. His red swimming shorts hung low on his hips, hugging everything perfectly, but Marco didn't get to see anything, because the picture cut in the most interesting place. Ace was hunched forward a little and looked at the camera with the expression that made Marco hard – the eyes, the little smirk, the freckles – everything said 'I know I'm hot and I know you want me, but you ain't gonna get any'.

Marco couldn't get that picture out of his head – when he closed his eyes, he could recall it with disturbing clarity, everything from the placement of the freckles on the face to every single droplet of water on that mouth-watering body. It resulted in him tossing and turning for most of the night and when he did get a little of sleep, Ace was present there and in the end Marco gave up on sleeping. That was around five o'clock in the morning.

Now he was barely dragging his feet up the flight of stairs in the school, silently thanking God for not having practice later today. Marco just followed the stairs up, holding the handrail just in case. He had to stop, because somebody blocked the stairs. Marco looked up, ready to snap at whoever it was, only to see Ace getting his hair fixed by the red-head, number three on the 'Most Wanted' list.

"Much better," she said, when she was satisfied with her work. "Oh, good morning, sempai," she said; Marco couldn't help but notice how close her and Ace's bodies were.

Ace turned around, his face expressed surprise when he saw Marco. 'Of course he'd look surprised, it's not like he'd have that smirk on all the time and it's not like he lost any sleep at night over a picture,' Marco reminded himself, as he stared at the boy in front of him. He was sure that if Ace had to, he could make school uniform look sexy as hell. On the other hand, there were a lot of old pervs who liked them young and in school uniform… Marco felt like he was turning into one of them, when his imagination made Ace to take the same pose as in that picture, only this time he wore his school uniform. 'Stop thinking!' Marco yelled at himself, as he kept staring at Ace.

"Morning," the boy in front of him said awkwardly, as he moved away from the red-head.

'Of course he feels awkward, you've been staring at him for who knows how long!' Marco's inner self smacked him on the head. 'Just walk away, walk away.'

Marco nodded to them in reply and walked past them, concentrating on his breathing, instead of Ace. He had to concentrate on ANYTHING but Ace. Anything, anything but that picture… Marco felt like banging his head against a wall in hope of gaining some control of his thoughts.

'What's wrong with you?' Marco's inner self said, angrily. 'You weren't even aware of his existence yesterday morning.'

Blissful time that was, Marco sighed. He didn't lose any sleep over incredibly hot people and he didn't get a boner every time he saw them and he had such perfect and blissful life… No, life just had to send him to the dentist so that he'd get run over by that same person and spend the rest of his life thinking about screwing him, because there's no way in hell that'll happen for real.

"Somebody, just kill me…" Marco muttered, as he walked into his classroom and collapsed on his chair.

"Somebody's optimistic today," Robin turned around in her chair, as she sat in front of Marco.

"You kidding?" he glared at her, opening one eye. Marco didn't even notice when he closed his eyes.

"No, I'm sarcastic. Will you elaborate?"

"Do you need me to?"

"I guess not, I just want to confirm my guess," Robin smiled pleasantly. "Do you mind if I do the talking?"

Marco waved his hand, telling her to go ahead. He really didn't care anymore.

"Can you open your eyes for a second?" she asked.

Marco raised his eyebrows curiously, but obeyed. Next moment he wished he didn't. Robin held her phone out for him to see. There was another picture of Ace, leaning back on a railing outside and wearing nothing but boots, black shorts and an orange hat. Marco didn't look more at the picture, he just closed his eyes and tried to relax. 'Breathe in, breathe out,' his inner self said calmingly, but Marco was far from being calm. Somebody up high had some kind of personal vendetta against him, it was the only way he could explain everything.

"Thank you," Robin said as if she was checking something on a list.

Marco just sighed. Robin was really merciless in her pursuit of knowledge. She'd stop at nothing to get the information she wanted, despite whatever collateral damage her pursuit would cause. Knowledge was above everything. That's what Marco hated right now. He wanted to see that photo again. Badly. He wanted to see every single detail, but he couldn't. It wouldn't do him any good, he knew that. Still, he wanted to have a closer look at the photo, preferably a live recreation he could touch and get to know. Hm, maybe he should ask Ace… 'BAD IDEA!' Marco's inner self yelled immediately. It was probably right, Marco wasn't sure he'd be able to resist that in any way.

The bell rung and Marco opened his eyes, reaching for his bag. He had a feeling that today was going to be one very long day, and the schedule didn't help – he had a very boring day today according to it. He knew what he'd do the first thing after the lesson – go to the cafeteria and get himself some coffee to get him through the morning.

.

(^_^)

Ace was happy. Happy as a clam. Everything was perfect in his little world right now. Namely, he was in his math class and it was a regular one and the teacher was nice and he understood everything and he was happy. Finally, finally math made sense to him. Of course, there were some bad sides to it, like Nami and Law still being in the advanced class, but he could live with that, he didn't need anything to be explained to him ten times before he got a smallest clue as to what the hell he was supposed to do. There were actual numbers in his text book, not some form of elfish he couldn't read. He smiled at the memory of the picture on the internet – he could relate to it. Ace really missed the feeling of being able to understand what the teacher was talking about. He was happy. Everything was perfect… Until he faceplanted on the desk thanks to his narcolepsy.

The lesson was still going on when he came around, nobody as much as looked at him, they were all used to it. Except for the teacher, apparently, who was slightly paler than what she was before Ace blacked out. Since everyone was working in their textbooks, she came over to him and asked:

"Are you alright?"

Ace felt sorry for her, she looked really scared.

"Yeah, I'm completely fine, it happens all the time," he smiled apologetically – he was starting to like this teacher and scaring her like that wasn't high on his list of priorities.

"So I've heard. Are you sure you are fine? You don't need to go to the nurse?"

"I'm fine, don't worry," Ace chuckled, it was always funny to see the reactions he got from the new teachers when his narcolepsy decided to say hi. The horrified expression on their faces never got old.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Tell me, if you feel weird or anything."

"I will, don't worry," although the convincing part was getting annoying.

The rest of the lesson was uneventful, so after it Ace took his wallet and went to cafeteria – his next lesson was chemistry lab, so he didn't want to end up with his face in hydrochloric acid. Thus he needed a supply of coffee, strong enough to keep him wide awake during the whole lab. Even if he wasn't trusted with chemicals (his lab partners always handled those), it's not like he did nothing – he set up the whole thing and he was good at figuring things out, so everyone wanted to have him as their partner.

Ace rolled down the stairs and skipped all the way to cafeteria. He actually liked chemistry, unlike social sciences he had after the lab. If only he could, he would have made himself fall asleep for the duration of the lesson. Now, with the advanced math out of the picture, the social sciences were going to be the bane of his existence.

He was so deep in dark thoughts about the lesson, that he didn't notice an obstacle in front of him and he ran straight into it. Correction – not it, Marco-sempai.

"You have to stop popping up wherever I'm going to run," Ace laughed, sitting on the floor and looking at Marco, who was glaring at him.

"You've got to stop running in the school," Marco answered, as he got up.

"I was going to the cafeteria," Ace said, hoping that Marco wasn't too mad at him for running him down two days in a row.

"Food…" Marco rolled his eyes and started to walk in the direction of cafeteria, not waiting for Ace, so he got up quickly and caught up to sempai.

"Nope, this time it's coffee," Ace smiled widely. "I need to be awake for the lab."

"Which one?"

"Chemistry. What's your next period?"

"Physics."

"I would have liked physics if I had a different teacher, our teacher sucks…" Ace sighed – he had the same teacher in physics and advanced math. Needless to say – the guy hated Ace.

"Hm," Marco answered, as they waited in queue in the cafeteria.

"So, what do you have today, sempai?" Ace asked, because the pause was getting awkward.

"English, physics, double math and religion," sempai answered shortly.

"Eh… I kind of wish that was my schedule… I have math, double chemistry, social sciences and biology…" Ace sighed. "I really hate social sciences…"

"Hm," that was all he got out of Marco, who was now pouring coffee into a paper mug and not even sparing a glance in Ace's direction. He paid for his coffee and walked away slowly, carefully drinking the hot beverage.

Ace quickly made himself coffee, exchanged a few words with the cafeteria lady, who was complaining about Luffy, paid for his coffee and what Luffy ate (that was really the last of his money, unless Sabo transferred him his earnings from the last photo-shoot) and hurried after Marco.

Before he caught up to his sempai, though, his phone rang, so Ace stopped, as he fished it out of his pocket. Speak of the devil…

"'Sup!" Ace said cheerfully.

"Hi yourself," Sabo said on the other end. "Can you make some time for me on Friday? I got a new camera, so I need to take it for a test-drive."

"Sure, but you better give me my money or I'll starve before Friday arrives, I just spent everything I had to pay for everything Luffy ate in the cafeteria…" Ace answered; he noticed that sempai stopped and was listening to the conversation.

"I already did, last night," Sabo answered, as he chuckled. "Why doesn't Luffy pay for himself? He gets a decent check, so what's the problem?"

"Nami is the problem…" Ace sighed. "She confiscates Luffy's money and puts them on a bank account… Like, all of it… He never sees any money and I'm stuck paying for everything…"

"Are you trying to make me give you a raise?"

"Will you?" Ace laughed.

"I might, if you'll get me a new model," Sabo answered, laughing as well.

Ace's eyes immediately went to sempai, looking at him with his professional eyes. With some practice, he could surely be a good one, Ace finally decided.

"Hey, you still there?"

"Ah, yes… Rejoice, I have someone in mind, I'll make sure he's available on Friday," Ace said, still evaluating Marco critically.

"He? You don't have a female? We've got enough males as it is…"

"If, after Friday, you'll think he's no good, then I'll look for a girl," Ace smiled mischievously.

"Is that so? He better be good," Sabo said. "Ok, got to go, I'll pick you up on Friday."

"Bye," Ace pressed the red button and turned to sempai with a wicked smile on his lips. "Seempai, are you free on Friday?" Ace said, dragging out the 'e'.

"Why?" Marco said, eyeing him suspiciously.

"I just need you to do me a favor and meet up with me on Friday after classes."

"Why?"

"Come on, sempai. Count it as hanging out with friends," Ace said. "It's a deal. Now I have to run, I need to get my books, see you around sempai," he looked at the clock on the wall and went to his classroom, leaving Marco staring in confusion.

The lab was pretty uneventful, Ace was teamed up with Law and they were a good combo. After the lab they had lunch, but Ace found that one of his lunchboxes was missing. He sighed, already knowing the culprit, and ate his lunch quickly. Through the social studies Ace found himself thinking about one thing – Marco-sempai said he owed him an all-you-can-eat buffet. After fantasizing for an entire lesson, Ace finally decided – he'll have that buffet today, if sempai agrees. Thus, after the lesson, he took out his phone and sent Marco sms:

'Remember you said you owed me a buffet? I'd like to collect :D'

Soon the answer came:

'Today?'

'Yeah, my lunch was stolen, so… XD'

'Someone stole your lunch? O_o'

'And I even know who :D'

'Fine by me, I'll meet you at the school gate after lessons'

'Thanks a lot! You are a savior! XD'

Ace smiled at his phone, now he should keep this quiet and the words 'an all-you-can-eat buffet' won't reach Luffy's bat ears. When it came to food, Luffy could hear people whispering about it two classrooms away. If he ever found out about it, Ace's date with Marco-sempai could be flushed down the toilet. 'Wait, a date?' Ace straightened, as he was almost lying in his chair, waiting for biology to start.

If you looked at it from that kind of angle, it certainly was. As a matter of fact, Ace was actually dating sempai this week, so it could count as a date. If it was indeed a date (and it was Ace who asked sempai out) he had to think it through, like maybe going somewhere after the buffet… He'd have to mind his manners, when he ate too… Suddenly Ace felt he didn't want that buffet. He'll screw everything up, Marco already thinks he's a food-crazed idiot… 'Wait, why am I worried?' Ace frowned. Why did he even care what Marco thought of him? He'll dump Ace in the end of the week anyway.

Ok, so a short note. Chapter five will be published as soon as I finish writing chapter six. I found that it helps me to keep writing. This time I won't promise an update time, but lets hope that it will happen within two next weeks. Honestly, the only reason I published this story was because I already started on chapter four.

Anyways, thanks a lot for all the reviews and favourites and follows, they make me really happy.

I hope to see you soon,

Rhe.