Sorry for the long wait. I did write, so those who don't know it yet can check out Shallow Waters, another Marco x Ace story :)

Song of the chapter: Suna no Oshiro by Kanon Wakeshima.

Bete'ed by aqua-empress, even though she's as dead as me :) Thanks hon :)

Disclaimer: do I still have to put it in here? When I'll own OP I'll let the whole world know that.

Ace didn't know what to do with himself. He just wanted to go somewhere quiet and bang his head against a wall. He was definitely an Idiot. With a capital I. Why the hell did he ever ask sempai out? Ever since Ace did that, there wasn't a day he didn't humiliate himself in front of the said sempai. Apparently the whole waking up thing, which Ace personally wanted to erase from his memory, wasn't enough. Oh, no, not even close. There was him falling asleep on the bus, an incident Ace wanted to wipe away badly, because he felt like banging his head against the nearest object every time he thought about how he got off the bus. Frankly, Ace had no idea what did he ever do to deserve such humiliation.

After the bus came the training and yes, Marco-sempai decided to spar with him again, which resulted in nothing good. Basically, he was turned into a pretzel and was questioned as to what happened to him and why didn't he fight. After the Monday, there was no way Ace would let his control go inside the dojo, which disappointed sempai to no end. Whatever you did, you didn't want to disappoint Marco-sempai. Sempai said nothing, but looked at him in a way that made him want to disappear from the face of the earth. But that wasn't all, not at all.

Grand finale came a bit later. Namely after the first lesson. There was only one thing that could happen and it just had to happen. Since he woke up early, he needed his coffee, but he had other needs too. Thus, after a quick visit to the restroom, Ace hurried to the cafeteria so that he could buy himself a cup of coffee before the next lesson. Key word here was 'hurried'. Namely ran. And it just had to happen that in that exact moment Marco-sempai was walking out of the cafeteria with a cup of coffee in his hands. Somehow, Ace wished he ran sempai over this time as well. It would not have been as embarrassing as what happened.

He noticed sempai last second. By wide eyes and sempai's posture, he could guess that this was a surprise for him as well. Ace did not run into sempai, oh no. He spun around, trying to change his trajectory, but the only thing he succeeded in was to fall like a stock. Not only did he fell, he also rolled a bit, making sempai jump over him, which resulted in sempai spilling some coffee anyway, although only on the floor.

Thankfully, sempai was a polite person, so he didn't even smile, unlike other people who got to witness his humiliation. Sempai kindly asked if he was fine and even thanked him for consideration, which didn't make Ace feel any better. Frankly, he'd sell his soul to the devil if he could turn back time and keep his stupid mouth shut on Monday. Hell, he'd agree to eternal servitude for erasing those memories from every person who got to see him humiliate himself this week.

It was only natural that at the moment Ace sat behind his desk, his arms on the deck and his face on top of them, on verge of nervous breakdown. Every time he thought that he could not embarrass himself anymore and voila – he just had to prove himself wrong. What the fuck was wrong with him?! What the hell did his mother gave him birth for? To watch her son humiliate himself in every way possible? What did he do to anger the higher powers?

Okay, that was a rhetorical question, he was an angry kid when he was small and a lot of people suffered from that, mostly poor Dadan and her gang and poor thugs at the Grey Terminal. On the other hand, they kind of started it, so he wasn't sure it should count. If anything, he was very mean to Luffy when he first met him. On the other hand, the kid was annoying as fuck, so it shouldn't count either.

After some serious thinking and calculation, Ace decided that no, he did not deserve this kind of punishment. Unless there was something super-awesome waiting to happen to him in the future and all this was sent to him to even things out. If so, he should humbly endure the hardships and wait for the good thing to happen. Finally finding a ray of sunshine among dark clouds, Ace sat up straight and sighed happily, feeling like a thousand years old sage who finally found inner peace.

"What's wrong with you?" Ace was brought back from his inner peace place by Nami, who sat down in front of him.

"Hm?" he looked at his friend with content smile on his face.

"You're starting to creep me out," Nami said with a frown. "One second you were as gloomy as Perona and the next you look as if you have a twelve course meal in front of you. You don't have borderline on top of narcolepsy, do you?"

"How did you know?" Ace laughed.

"I had my suspicions for a while, I just needed a confirmation," Nami laughed as well. "Now, jokes aside, what's up with you?"

"Nothing," Ace said, unsure if dating a male sempai should count as something wrong with him. "Just an early morning and a bad practice."

"And that thing in the corridor," Nami reminded him.

"Thank you, for bringing that up," Ace pouted. "And I just managed to erase it from my memory."

"Sorry?" Nami offered, leaning on his desk in such a way that Ace could literally hear his male classmates wish him to die a painful death. Speaking of painful deaths…

"Hey, I'm curious," Ace started, earning raised eyebrows from Nami. "You dated Marco-sempai some time ago."

"Yeah, why?"

"It's just… I kind of got on his bad side and I just want to know what kind of person is he," blatant lie. Not once did sempai get angry at him, despite everything that's happened since Monday.

"Well… What can I tell you?" Nami sighed, almost lying on top of his desk and looking out the window; Ace was sure that he just got cursed at least a hundred times. Maybe that's what's happening to him and not his 'balance of good and bad' theory. "He's… how should I put it? The best comparison would be a 'knight in shining armour'. He's warm, kind… A week-long fairy-tale." Nami gave Ace a nostalgic smile. "Still, the fairy-tales have to have an ending and it's always the same one."

"What do you mean?" he raised an eyebrow at her – so far his 'fairy-tale' was nothing but terrible.

"Well, at the end of the week he always says the same thing – 'I am sorry I couldn't fall in love with you'."

"How do you know he always says that?"

"I'm a girl and girls spend a lot of time gossiping," she looked at him as if he was stupid. "In this case – comparing experiences. It's almost identical," Nami sighed. "Another common thing was that he's never the one to initiate contact, no matter if it's just holding hands, a hug or a kiss."

"That's just wasteful." It came out before Ace could stop himself.

"One could think that, yes," Nami laughed. "Some girls were even stupid enough to try and force themselves on him."

"Where are they buried?" he laughed as well, because there was no way in hell something like that would work out with Marco-sempai.

"They are still alive, but they are afraid of having Marco anywhere near them. Heck if I know what he did to them," Nami looked at the teacher entering the classroom and, after ruffling Ace's hair (he angrily swatted her hand away, causing even more glares from his classmates), went to her seat.

Ace stared at the blackboard with a solemn expression on his face. There was a lot to think about. For example, if he ever happened to be stupid enough (which he probably was, despite his above average grades) to try to force himself on sempai… Wait, did he just admit that he could actually do that? 'That would be the peak of humiliation, if that was to happen,' he thought gloomily and shook his head – there was no way that would ever happen. Yeah, he could admit that sempai was hot, he'd have to be blind to state otherwise, but that would just be weird… Right? 'The fact that I kind of asked him out doesn't mean anything, right? I mean, we're both guys… On the other hand, why am I worried? Nami said he's not going to touch me and all I have to do is to survive the rest of the week and then I'll never ever do the same mistake again.'

Despite his somewhat optimistic thoughts, Ace could not get rid of the odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something was gnawing him from the inside, something he couldn't put his finger on. It wasn't hunger, he knew that sensation very well. It was more like he knew he did something bad, but no one reprimanded him for that. Like he knew it was a bad thing to do, but he still did it anyway and now his conscience was having a field day. 'But I didn't do anything!' Ace thought angrily.

(^_^)

Marco was staring his teacher down. It kind of helped that the guy was two heads shorter than him and looked like a hamster. The class was snickering at the difference in their appearances and was placing bets on who was right. Normally he would have been quiet, but he had a very, VERY bizarre morning and he didn't get enough sleep, which resulted in extremely short fuse. The class was waiting for Robin to come back with the right book from the library in order to solve the conflict.

Given that this was a history class, they expected Robin to know the answer right away, but she seemed to be having a bad day too and couldn't remember the exact dates for the battle of Stalingrad. The teacher was dead sure that it was between 23rd of August 1942 to 22nd of January 1943 and normally Marco didn't give a damn about a week and a half as long as he knew the correct answer, but today he just couldn't help it. It wasn't like he was a history prodigy like Robin, he just had this game at home which included a question on battle of Stalingrad and the answer clearly stated that it ended 2nd February 1943, not 22nd of January. Of course there was a possibility of it being incorrect, but he was fully prepared to apologise in case he was wrong. He just felt like arguing with someone, so he wasn't going to miss this golden opportunity.

Robin walked into the classroom with a book in her hand, using one of her fingers as a bookmark. She moved to stand between Marco and the teacher, holding the dramatic pause in best traditions of soap operas. Then she opened the book and, after nodding to herself, she said:

"On the 22d of January field marshal Paulus requested permission to surrender," she allowed the teacher to straighten himself proudly, before beating him down. "He was captured 31st of January. The battle of Stalingrad ended the 2nd February around four in the morning."

"What?" the teacher snatched the book from Robin's hands and started reading quickly; Marco was still standing in front of the class, his arms crossed on his chest and his foot tapping. After reading same lines a couple of times, the teacher finally spoke. "Well, it seems like I was wrong. Since Phoenix-san knows so much about it, how about he gives us a ten minute presentation about battle of Stalingrad this time next week?"

Marco's eyebrow twitched. He should have kept his mouth shut. He knew better and yet he just had to argue.

"Certainly," Marco said, glaring at the teacher. He went back to his seat feeling like punching a hole in a wall. When will he learn that he should keep his mouth shut at school? There was no way he'd pull off a decent presentation in history without Robin's help.

If anything, this proved the fact that the amount of functioning brain cells in his brain was swiftly declining. Speaking of the reason for that, he had to come up with a way to make Ace go all out on the training without losing control. Compared to Monday, today's training was a disappointment. It was even bigger disappointment because Marco looked forward towards sparring with Ace, who avoided the fight by all means possible. The only thing he could do to make it more obvious was to run away literally.

Marco tuned out the teacher completely as he concentrated on finding a way to get Monday's Ace out of normal Ace without any casualties. Monday's Ace was fun to spar with, normal Ace – not so much. Unfortunately, every possibility Marco came up with needed time and he wanted to fight now. Well, maybe not right now, but soon. Soon as in preferably next training, but earlier was fine too. He could start with talking to Ace about it, although he had no idea what to say. What could he say? 'I want to fight you so you're dead if you hold back ever again'? That sounded totally wrong…

Marco sighed, shifting his gaze to the history book in front of him. If he was to be honest with himself, sparring wasn't the only thing he wanted to do with Ace. This was a first for him – normally he was detached when he dated, but this time he had hard time keeping his head… Only this morning he wanted to climb into the bed to join Ace and he shouldn't even mention those damn pictures, because every time he remembered them… Idiot, that's what he was.

(^_^)

Ace considered himself a happy-go-lucky kind of guy who just went with the flow. That explained a lot in his life, including why he would agree to be Sabo's model. However, there were a couple of things people should never do unless they wanted to provoke him. Mostly that meant 'do not stand between Ace and the food', although several people could do that without fear of waking the animal sleeping within him. Lately, the list of people who could harmlessly do that increased by one person. That person was the only one who could make him stop eating by his presence alone. It didn't take a genius to figure out who that was and Nami (another person on that short list, which included Luffy, Sabo and Garp) was not stupid.

She blatantly stared at him with wide eyes and open mouth when he suddenly stopped eating his lunch as they sat in the cafeteria. At first Nami even put her palm on his forehead, in case he had a fever, but then she followed his gaze and saw the reason, who was buying coffee accompanied by Robin. When the reason noticed him and decided to walk over, Nami saw another thing anyone would have thought impossible – Ace tried to leave the food and desert the cafeteria, but was caught and forced to stay in his place.

"How are you doing?" Robin asked with a friendly smile.

"Fine," Ace answered tensely, eyeing sempai in case he had something to say about this morning's practice.

"Is that so? Lucky you then, Marco here got himself extra homework in history," she sat down on a free chair in front of them; sempai remained standing.

"What kind of extra homework? An essay?" Nami asked, curious.

"Ten-minute presentation on battle of Stalingrad for next Wednesday," Marco answered grumpily, he did not seem to like it at all.

"Look at the bright side – it could have been an essay," Ace said, trying to cheer up sempai.

"That's what I told him – presentations are easy. All he has to do is find some four minute material and drag it out to be ten," Robin nodded. "Plus I agreed to help him."

"Then why are you mad? You barely have anything to do," Ace looked at Marco with surprise.

"He's not mad about the work load, he's mad about the sole fact that he has to do it," Robin laughed.

"Oh…" Nami giggled. "You should not spend time with Ace, he's bad influence."

"Hey!" Ace exclaimed indignantly. Everybody just laughed at him, so he sighed and asked, remembering one annoying thing he had to do after school. "Anyone want to tag along to Dadan after school?"

"Sorry, I can't. I have to go to the museum - mom said they're getting a new exhibition," Robin smiled apologetically.

"Speaking of which, I completely forgot to kill Luffy for daring to say that she looked like me," Nami said with a scary smile on her face. "I'm sorry I will be busy after school too."

"No problem," Ace said; Nami was very scary sometimes.

"Marco should tag along, it'll be very educating for him," Robin said, her smile almost identical to Nami's.

"Eh?" Marco and Ace looked at Robin with the same expression on their faces – clearly doubting her mental health. That didn't pass Nami's attention either.

"Oh, I'm sure it will be very interesting for you, Marco-sempai," she said with a sly smile.

Ace cursed inwardly, regretting the day he became friends with those two. He finally understood why Zoro called Nami a witch. By the looks of it, Marco-sempai was doing the same thing.

"Fine, I'll go with you," sempai said, his whole look said 'do what you want, I don't care anymore'.

"Then after school you should go home and change into something you don't mind getting dirty," Robin said contently.

"Sure," Marco sighed, looking at Ace for help; Ace looked away, he knew he was being a coward, but there was no way they could win if Nami and Robin were their opponents. "Where do we meet then?"

"Take the bus to East Blue Dawn, it's three stops after Foosha Village," Nami answered as if it was she who had to take sempai to the Mt. Corvo.

"Actually," Ace spoke up, "it would be better if you came by my house just in case."

"Right, I forgot," Nami nodded. "It's better that way."

Sempai nodded hesitantly and Ace could not blame him – it sounded way too suspicious. If it was him, he would have thought twice before doing that. Thus, when they were on their way to the classroom, Ace texted sempai 'Sorry about that, u don't have to do this if u don't want to :)'. The reply came surprisingly fast: 'I don't mind :) so I pick u up at ur house?'

Ace sighed in relief when he read that because half of him hoped that sempai would tag along. He wasn't sure why half of him was that stupid – that trip will end with him being humiliated yet again for sure, - but that half of him was happy about the trip. Thus he typed: 'Yeah, will you find the way?' and stared at his phone with anticipation. This reply was quick too 'I hope so :) you won't be asleep, right?' Ace chuckled at that statement and texted 'That depends :D'

'On?'

'How slow u are XD'

'That depends on ur definition of slow'

Ace smiled, typing 'Good one :) Let's say within two hours after school ends.'

'Works for me'

'Text me if u're lost XD'

'Hopefully I won't be'

'U got lost this morning :D'

'The street was stupid'

'U're not related to Zoro, are you?'

'Like hell I am, if it was him he'd be on the other side of the city XD'

'True enough :D'

Ace had to put his phone away because the teacher was losing his patience and if he didn't do that he'd risk getting detention and his phone confiscated. That was the very last thing he needed right now. Plus that'd be very embarrassing to say the least. In a second he felt the phone vibrate in his pocket and his hands literally itched to get it out and read the message but he had to wait for the teacher to turn his back to the class.

Ace stared at the teacher trying to hypnotise him to turn his back to the class as his hand got the phone out of the pocket. Unfortunately, it seemed like the teacher was immune to hypnosis or Ace just sucked at hypnotising people, but it was about twenty minutes before he got his chance to read the message. When he unlocked the phone he understood that he had one brother too many. Plus that he'll probably be joining Nami after school and try to kill that idiot that wrote 'Ace I'm hungry' to him.

The fact that I'm puplishing this chapter is a miracle... I have two years worth of chemistry and biology to go through in the next two weeks and that's besided the university exams... Yeah, you don't need to tell me, I know I'm screwed.

Anyways, next chapter will be late. Again. (I'm so sorry)

Thanks for reviews, favourites and follows! Makes my day :)

~Rhe :)