'Sup!

What can I say? So far med school feels like you are thrown out in the middle of an ocean, shown the direction to swim in and told that you will get your life vest when you get to the shore. So far I'm still floating XD

I would like to thank everyone for their support - I never expected this story to get 100+ follows, so thank you so much. I also want to thank lunarshores - she helped me make this chapter better because original version sucked.

LeiaGray - you are up :) Also, this chappie is one day late for Marco's b-day :D

Disclaimer: if I owned it, would I be writing ffs?

Song of the chapter: Demons by Imagine Dragons.

All in all, studying with Marco-sempai was nice. It certainly helped that sempai was a year ahead of him and had already done what Ace was working on before. At first, sempai seemed tense, but after a while, he relaxed, so Ace thought that it must have to do with the fact that sempai normally studied on his own. It also turned out that Marco-sempai had the same gift as Sabo: namely, whatever he explained made a lot of sense. Ace even had the treacherous thought that if he could arrange frequent study sessions with Marco-sempai, he could actually return to the advanced math class. Hell, he could get into advanced everything if sempai agreed to tutor him. Ace could not possibly ask him to do that, though, because it would have been extremely selfish of him.

Not that he didn't consider the possibility – he spent almost half an hour staring at Marco-sempai, warring with himself. He could ask for help with math first and then, whenever he needed help, he could say 'By the way, I have some trouble with this, can you help me?' That's where he stopped himself, realising that he would be exploiting sempai's kindness. Then he changed his train of thought to that he should probably make an offer of this being a part-time job for sempai – the deal wouldn't be bad: sempai could study his own things, only breaking if Ace needed something explained. The problem with that would be that Ace knew himself pretty well, and spending that much time with him would make Marco-sempai want to puke the second he'd see Ace's face.

Finally, annoyed by the staring, sempai got up, saying that he was going to get some coffee. Ace stayed in his place, fully aware that if he followed sempai to do the same thing (something he's been thinking about for a while now), he'd just get punched in the face. Thus he waited for sempai to come back before he did the exact same thing.

"You know you could have just told me, and I would have gotten you one too," Marco-sempai said, taking a sip and returning his gaze to his advanced physics book.

"I don't trust people with my coffee - they tend to bring me decaff just for the fun of it," Ace answered with a half-truth – Sabo had done that more than once, and his school friends were guilty of it as well.

"There is only one coffee machine here, how could I possibly do that?" sempai looked at Ace, clearly putting him in the 'paranoid people' category.

"There's decaff in the drawers All you need to do is to boil some water," he said slightly defensively.

After a moment of consideration, sempai finally spoke:

"Either you spend too much time with Robin, or you have too many friends that are just like her."

"Both, I think," Ace answered with a smile. "But do tell."

"Tell what?"

"Why would you of all people be paranoid of Robin?"

Marco laughed loudly at that, but stopped quickly, covering his mouth with his hand to keep the laughter on manageable level. Ace looked at him with curiosity – he certainly didn't expect sempai to laugh instead of denying it or waving it off.

"I am not paranoid of Robin. I just think she's too damn good at reading people," sempai answered when he stopped laughing, "Plus she's scary when she's curious."

"You can say that again," Ace muttered into his cup.

"Do tell," Marco sempai said slyly.

"All I have to say is that she once came along to Dadan's, and now they have a 'Robin is coming' panic signal to be able to escape and disperse," Ace said darkly.

"And they say that women gossip a lot," a very familiar voice said suddenly.

"Robin!" Ace's face involuntarily split into gigantic smile – he was actually very fond of her, almost to the point of considering her his sister. Despite all her scary tendencies. "Why aren't you at the museum?"

"I just came here to get a book, and Hocha said you were here, so I decided to say hi," Robin answered. "Though I have to say, I definitely did not anticipate Marco when she said you had company."

"Speaking of which, why doesn't he have the card?" Ace couldn't help but notice that sempai pretended that he was a part of the original library design.

"You don't?" Robin turned to sempai, who definitely did not appreciate extra attention.

"No," Marco replied shortly.

"Alright then, I'll ask the curator to do a small favour for me," Robin said to sempai with a smile Ace knew all too well – the scary 'I know what you did last summer' smile. "Ace, are you meeting Sabo anytime soon?"

"Yeah, tomorrow," Ace answered, slightly wary of Robin now.

"Tell him to swing by museum during weekend; he'll like this one. I'll be there, so tell him to drop a line when he arrives," Robin said it to Ace, but it looked like she and sempai had a silent dialogue between them. She looked smug and sempai looked pretty defensive, as if Robin caught him doing something he was not supposed to be doing. "I'll be going now, nice seeing both of you."

"I'll pass your message to Sabo," Ace said with a nod.

Robin nodded back as thanks and left with a final wave. Ace turned his gaze back to sempai only to find him gloomy and a little bit defeated, just like Luffy when he sees that dinner is not due for another hour. Whatever that silent conversation was about, it did not end in sempai's favour, or rather it was more like his forces were severely outnumbered and completely annihilated. He looked at Marco sympathetically – Sabo had such an effect on him after he thoroughly explained what Ace did wrong when Ace unwittingly messed up. What more, it was always a lost battle because, even though it was annoying as hell, Sabo was always right. Sempai looked just like Ace after a nice long talk with his brother. Luckily, Ace knew exactly what helped him to get his confidence back.

Sempai looked rather surprised when Ace started to gather his things.

"Are you done already?" Marco asked with a slight frown.

"No, but we've been sitting here for three and a half hours. I'm taking a break," he answered, deciding to put his money on hope that sempai would follow him.

(^_^)

Marco had a lot of brothers. Together they could be a really good criminal organisation. Over the years they also perfected their interrogation tactics, so now Marco could be interrogated by anyone who did it for living and still not give them anything they needed. Despite his experience, he was still not prepared for Ace's interrogation tactic. After half an hour of staring he was ready to confess everything, from Chupa-Chupses to the fact that he was the one that broke Izo's favourite toy five years ago, but Thatch was blamed and forced to apologise. Of course he did not break the toy on purpose, but when he was asked if he was the one who did it, he instinctively said no. Given that Thatch and Izo had a fight just a day before, Izo instantly blamed Thatch and Marco was asked only for the sake of the procedure. No one ever suspected Marco and to this day no one knew about it, but, after half an hour of quiet staring, he was ready to spill everything.

He did the only thing that came to his mind – escaped to get coffee even if he didn't really want or need it. What more, just when he thought that he wasn't going to be interrogated and could actually relax, Robin showed up. Not the lost in her own world Robin, but the usual one, namely the very perceptive one. Apparently, this perceptive Robin found it extremely amusing that he was at the library with Ace. Not that she haven't seen Marco with his 'dates' before, but somehow this time Marco felt like he was an exhibition to her. Luckily for him, she didn't stay long.

After she left, Ace started to gather his things as well, confusing Marco because Ace seemed to have quite a load of homework, and he was nowhere near done. Marco himself didn't have much because he was always ahead on his homework, preferring to do it before it was too late. Apparently, Ace used a completely different method, namely leaving everything until last possible moment.

"Are you done already?" Marco asked in disbelief because if he was correct in his assumptions, he would tie Ace to the chair until the closing time or until he was done.

"No, but we've been sitting here for three and a half hours. I'm taking a break," his kouhai responded, and Marco had to agree – three and a half hours without a break was a lot.

"Where are we going?" the blond asked, deciding that if they didn't come back to the library he could still finish it at home and somehow force Ace to do the same. Maybe a Skype session?

Ace gave him a blinding smile, the exact copy that he gave Marco on Monday, making him consider investing in a pair of sunglasses.

"Out," the raven answered, packing his things.

"I kind of figured that one out on my own," Marco rolled his eyes as he opened his bag as carefully as he could – getting caught now would be plain embarrassing.

"We won't go far," Ace responded, refusing to give Marco a proper answer.

"Can you be a little more specific?"

"Don't wanna spoil anything," Ace responded with another smile.

"Should I be afraid?" Marco asked with a small smile of his own as he got up, his stuff back in his bag and Ace still unaware of the whereabouts of his Chupa-Chupses.

"Depends," Ace said slyly, leading the way out of the library.

"On?" Marco raised an eyebrow with curiosity.

"Are you afraid of cafés?"

"No, but I assume they are afraid of you," Marco answered with what he thought to be a harmless jab, but to his surprise (and delight, to be completely honest), Ace turned completely red, acting like he was supposed to act for the first time today.

"You are not going to forget Tuesday anytime soon, are you?" Ace mumbled under his breath.

"Is that the only thing you want me to forget about?" Marco asked suggestively, sensing a weak spot. He was dead on – Ace's blush returned full force, making the raven a colour of a ripe tomato. What he didn't like, though, was that Ace's hand moved to his neck, covering some of the marks Marco personally made just last evening. "Well?" he asked, unable to prevent his icy tone.

Ace mumbled something inaudible, looking away. The blond had to fight down the urge to force the answer out of his kouhai. It surprised him – why was he feeling like he needed Ace to answer that particular question? Why would it bother him at all? He never gave a crap about what people he dated thought about him… Well, that's not really true - he tried to leave a good impression because he learned early on that there was no such thing as a secret among girls. Other than that he never cared what they thought about him. Why would Ace be so different? Why would he want to grab Ace's hand, turn him around and kiss the living daylight out of him right now?

Marco clenched his hands into fists, preventing his stupid body from doing something even more stupid. He was smart; he knew that (the academic ranking of the school was proof enough), but he was behaving irrationally and idiotically. This whole week was irrational and idiotic, and he knew that somehow it was Ace's fault, he just couldn't figure out what triggered him to act like he had. Why he still acted like that…

With all this internal digging, Marco barely noticed when Ace turned onto a smaller street, finding his way to a small and cosy café. It surprised him that despite being hidden and off the main street, the café was almost full. He had no idea who designed the interior, but when Marco entered, he thought it looked a lot like a typical British pub or café. There was a lot of dark wood, and it wasn't very spacious, reminding Marco of a café in London he visited during his summer vacation.

Ace led the way to the counter that was manned by a young girl with black hair and green eyes. After seeing Ace, she put two fingers to her temple and hummed, obviously concentrating on something. Ace came up to the counter and waited with a smile until she finally spoke:

"Let me guess… Double cappuccino… with… hm… Irish cream syrup and a ham panini?" the girl pointed at Ace.

"Almost," the raven replied. "I want hazelnut syrup."

"You changed your mind after I said it," the girl said, starting on the drink.

"Yeah, I did," Ace admitted with a smile; Marco did his best at reminding himself that this was just common courtesy if the customer was one of the regulars and not blatant flirting.

"We have triple chocolate cheesecake," she said, doing some fancy pattern baristas did.

"No cream," Ace answered.

"Of course not," she put the drink on a brick and quickly arranged the cake. "I'll bring the sandwich out in several minutes," she quickly pressed the buttons on the cashing machine, got the receipt and put it into a small black folder next to the drink. "What can I get you?"

At first Marco didn't get that she was talking to him, but caught up quickly.

"Black tea," he said, figuring that if he drank another cup of coffee he'd get caffeine high. "What can you offer to eat?"

"We have sandwiches, salads… Take a look," she offered Marco a paper menu.

After a look at the food, the names of which he didn't recognise, the blond just gave up and said:

"I trust that he won't eat anything bad, so I'll just take the same sandwich." Marco casually pointed at Ace.

"Alrighty. You want anything to go with the tea? If not, you're still getting a mini-cupcake," the girl smiled at Marco, finally fully turning and showing her name tag that simply stated 'Leia'. "Policy of the establishment."

He turned to Ace who nodded with confirmation, standing by a tray with mini-cupcakes. Apparently it was a hard decision – as far as Marco could see there were several flavours.

"Fine, mini-cupcake then."

"You can choose your tea over there. I'll be out with sandwiches shortly," Leia said, giving Marco a brick with big mug full of hot water and a small black folder with the receipt.

She left quickly to put an order and the blond went over to Ace to see what took so long, because choosing a cupcake shouldn't be that hard. The raven was playing 'eeny meeny miny moe' with a concentrated look on his face. When he got a result, he wasn't happy about it, starting again.

"Is it really that hard?" Marco asked, confused.

"But they are really good!" Ace said, then he realised who he was talking to and blushed.

"If I say you can take mine, does it make things easier for you?" the blond said with a slight smile – Ace's relationship with the food was interesting to say the least.

"Not by much, two more are on the house," Leia appeared behind the counter again. "Really, if I don't do that, he'll be standing here, choosing between them for half an hour," she said to Marco in fake whisper, making Ace blush harder but still grab a cupcake of each flavour. "Do you want one?"

"No, I'm good," Marco shook his head.

He followed Ace to the one empty table, stopping to pick up his tea, sugar, and a teaspoon. The blond sat down, already preparing to ignore both Ace and possible stares because the café was full. Therefore he just sat back and sipped his tea calmly, trying not to laugh at the small boy that sat by the table next to theirs. The boy was staring at the raven with awe, evidently impressed by the 'four mini-cupcakes in four seconds' trick. Marco smirked into his mug when the boy's parents noticed their child's staring and were about to reprimand him but instead stared themselves. Deciding to end the show, he kicked Ace lightly under the table.

His kouhai looked up at him from his own drink, oblivious of the stares.

"What?"

Marco's brain temporarily froze as he watched Ace lick the milk foam from his upper lip. His eyes followed the tongue as it swiped over the lip, driving his mind to the same place it was when Ace chose to eat Chupa-Chupses in front of him. An image quickly passed in Marco's mind, involving himself, Ace and the table currently between them. He shook his head, hoping to clear it and reminded himself that he actually was in a public place. That didn't help much, just enough to answer the question.

"Tuesday."

"Tuesday? What about Tue…" then Ace realised and Marco felt it was a safe bet that Ace was mentally cursing himself. "Sorry…" Ace mumbled, looking anywhere but at Marco, who was fine with that.

(^_^)

Ace could barely believe himself and the fact that he just had not only embarrassed himself but sempai as well by association. Deciding to do his very best to keep his manners in line, he took a sip of his cappuccino and took up a spoon, intending to show that he could actually behave… then everything turned black. He came around feeling something soft and kind of creamy under his cheek.

He flew up quickly, realising what that soft and creamy thing was. First thing he saw was sempai's face that was stuck between disbelief, shock, and amusement and then Marco put away his mug with tea and laughed loudly, holding his sides. Before anyone of them could react, there was a flash of camera and a joyful 'Yes!' coming from the direction of the counter.

"Oh, this is priceless!" they were joined by Leia, who held her phone proudly in front of her. She tapped Marco-sempai on the shoulder and, after he looked up at her, showed him the display of the phone.

Sempai doubled over after taking a look at the display, hitting his head on the table but still laughing even harder. With a proud face, Leia showed Ace the phone. To his horror there was he - right half his face covered in what used to be triple chocolate cheesecake and a completely terrified look on that face.

Ace bolted to the bathroom, followed by laughter, not only sempai's but also other patrons'. While this wasn't the first time this happened to him, it was equally embarrassing each and every time, this time being even worse than usual. It was at times like these he wondered 'why him?' Why did it have to be him who had to fall asleep in a cake? Why did his narcolepsy have worst possible timing? He normally laughed everything off, but today was just getting to him… Hell this whole week was getting to him!

He just couldn't believe himself – once he thought he hit the bottom of how much he could humiliate himself, he just kept proving himself wrong! It would have been funny if he wasn't the main character in this comic skit for one spectator.

'It just had to be here and now of all places! Why couldn't it have happened at school or at home?' Ace thought angrily as he tried to get the cake off his face. Such a waste of a perfectly good cake… One of his absolute favourites too… And sempai witnessed the whole thing…

Ace really wanted to punch something – what the hell got into him on that forsaken Monday? Granted, he did not know this would happen but who would have? He poured some soap in his hands and started scrubbing his face clean. Ace was now dead sure that even when Marco-sempai would be around ninety years old, he'd still remember the time he dated a clumsy, impolite, and gluttonous idiot that was raised by mountain bandits. Who would want to be remembered like that? He certainly didn't, but he didn't have a choice in the matter anymore. If anything, he should have tried thinking on Monday, before he opened his yap.

Ace glared at himself in the mirror and couldn't help but flinch when he saw cake in his hair. He struggled with the wish to kick something hard – his narcolepsy couldn't have had a better timing. Ace could bet that sempai wouldn't even blink when he would finally come out of the restroom, hopefully with no cake on his face.

'No wonder none of them are angry at him,' he thought bitterly as he washed the cake out of his hair. 'What did Nami call him? Knight in shining armour?' Ace snorted at that – knight in shining armour, his ass! That knight was probably thinking about the easiest way to bail right now.

Why the hell did it matter what Marco thought? It's not like this very thing didn't happen before, including places from a five star restaurant where Sabo dragged the whole crew to celebrate the contract with Criminal to this very café. He didn't give a crap either time, so what made the situation different? Right, a certain blond sempai made all the difference in the world. Ace huffed, annoyed at a piece of cake that refused to leave his hair. He might just cut the stubborn piece out and let Sabo worry about his looks… But he wouldn't do that, not while he was (and yes, he finally came to terms with himself about it) dating sempai this week.

He pulled at his hair angrily at the realisation that at the end of this week he'll end up like every other person Marco agreed to date. He'll hear the unchanging line and remain a name in sempai's list of people he'll never date ever again. For whatever reason, that pissed Ace off to no end. He almost pulled out the lock of hair that got too friendly with the cake, but it finally gave in so he just washed his face and hair again.

Next week Marco will be dating someone else and there was nothing he could do about it. Somehow, that hurt. It hurt even more when Ace saw the red marks on his neck from yesterday. If this was how Marco behaved during his weeks with people, Ace just wanted to punch him in the face.

"Get your shit together and get the fuck out of here," Ace growled at himself, determinedly unlocking the door and opening it.

Contrary to his expectations, there wasn't anyone outside, waiting for an opportunity to use the bathroom. It relaxed Ace a little bit, but not enough to stop wanting to hurt Marco, the more the better. Ace tried to look anywhere but at Marco-sempai as he made his way back to their table, unsure if he would be able to control himself.

"Are you alright?" the blond asked with concern.

"I'm fine," Ace lied with a weak smile on his face, doing his best to relax.

(^_^)

Something was off. Something was definitely not right. When Ace first planted in the cake, Marco intended to keep a straight face no matter what, but when he woke up, Marco just couldn't help himself. When Ace bolted to the restroom, Marco expected him to return in a couple of minutes, bright red in the face. He definitely did not expect the raven come out looking as if he was about to slaughter someone. Ace definitely wasn't fine, and the only thing Marco could actually do without knowing what was wrong was to apologise, which he did. Not that it did much – the raven just sat there, staring out the window, looking pissed. He barely even touched his sandwich which, in Marco's opinion, was a strong indicator that something was definitely wrong.

They did not stay long – after fifteen minutes of silent staring out the window Ace just rose without a word, gathered his things and went to the counter with his receipt to pay. Marco swiftly followed him, completely at loss as to what to do. Ace remained silent throughout the payment and left without waiting for Marco, who literally ran out after him, unintentionally leaving a giant tip.

When he ran out the café, he barely caught a glimpse of Ace turning around the corner of the street, so he hurried after the raven, worry eating him from inside. He needed to make right whatever went wrong because mere thought of Ace being mad at him or worse – hating him – hurt so much he could barely bear it.

Marco finally caught up to Ace in the city park that was more of small forest inside the city with small paths throughout it.

"Ace!" he called, barely keeping up with the raven. "Ace, please, wait!"

Ace completely ignored his words, keeping his head down. Marco caught Ace's hand, trying to at least slow him down. That didn't really work – Ace gave him a quick glance that stopped the blond dead in his tracks, releasing the hand. The raven looked angry, yes, but more than that he looked hurt. Marco didn't know what he could have done to cause this, but somehow he was sure that he was the one that hurt Ace. Sure, he laughed, but he wasn't only one – the situation was so hilarious he just couldn't keep it in. Marco had no idea how to mend whatever went wrong, so he just did the first thing that came to his mind.

The blond caught up to Ace and grabbed his hand again. Then, without allowing the raven to run away again, Marco crushed him in a hug. He felt Ace tense up at first, and then he started struggling, trying to push him away, but it only made Marco hug him tighter. After a minute of fighting, Ace relaxed in his arms, resting his head on the blond's shoulder and gripping the front of Marco's shirt. Marco held him close, wishing that it was himself hurting because he couldn't bear to see Ace hurting.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "Sorry…" Marco would have done anything to protect Ace from hurting ever again because seeing him like this pained him to no end.

It was in this moment Marco realised that somehow, during those short four days, Ace had become important to him. Important enough for the blond to know that he would do anything in his power to protect Ace from hurting ever again, that he would give his life for Ace without slightest hesitation. He knew that he would be whatever Ace wanted him to be as long as he could stay by his side.

"Sorry…" Marco said again, feeling helpless that he could do no more than this.

Ace took a deep breath and for a moment Marco was afraid that he would end the embrace, but Ace's arms circled him, hugging him back. They stayed like that for some time, remaining silent and still until raven broke the silence.

"Thank you," he murmured into Marco's shoulder.

"Anytime," the blond replied, actually meaning it.

Sorry that I can't promise an update anytime soon.

Thanks for all the reviews, favs and follows.

Hope to see you sooner rather than later :D

~Rhe.