It's been a little over a week. Eight days to be exact. And Feliciano was about to scream.

Not only had he not talked to the wonderful Monika yet, he already has been pilled up with work. An art project due at the end of the month, where everyone paints what is most precious to them. Problem is, Feliciano has a lot of things precious. He can't just choose one, it's too hard. Another, is that history project that he is doing with his new friend and partner for the class, Kiku. Then there's English, were everyone has to write three pages about themselves. How can he think of three pages? He can barely think of one. It's not like he has discovered everything about himself, he still surprises himself with things he didn't even know.

He groaned as he put his hands on his head, pulling his hair to help support it. He was very close to banging the keyboard with only the words 'Feliciano Vargas, age 17' on the screen. Writing is hard and he never wanted to do it again.

A knock on the door caused him to sit up straight and put his fingers on the laptop like he was typing. His sister walked in the room, "Better not be masturbating." she said, irritation pooling out her mouth. Feliciano just flashed her a smile, "you have a guest. Get your ass downstairs before I tell him to go away."

Feliciano raised an eyebrow. A guest? Who would come visit him? Better yet, who knows where he lives? He abandoned his laptop and slipped past Lovina, going downstairs and blinked twice when he saw a very familiar Japanese boy, who looked very uncomfortable and a bit embarrassed, "Kiku?" he tilted his head, "ve, what are you doing here?"

Kiku bowed slightly, "I have come to work on our project... remember, Feliciano-san? You told me to come over to work on it."

Feliciano looked at the ceiling, making a light 'ah' noise, trying to remember when he said that... oh yeah. After school yesterday. He looked back at the other in the room and flashed a smile, "Oh, right!" he laughed, "I'm sorry, I forgot. We can get started on it right now." he walked to the coffee table in the living room, Kiku following him slowly.

The Italian cleaned off the table, sitting on the ground on one side while Kiku sat on the other, placing his bag of things, "I took the liberty of doing the research for it," he cleared his throat before pulling out printed papers with words on them, "Sorry, I got a bit carried away with the paper..."

Feliciano's jaw dropped, "Wow! I can't even write a sentence! How did you..." he took the papers in his hands, looking over the, what looks like, the final copy of the information they were to turn in, along with the timeline.

Kiku darted his eyes, quick enough for Feliciano not to notice, "I do a lot of writing..." he simply said before pulling out a rolled up, miniature poster board and printed pictures, "I know I'm doing too much, but I also have the things for the timeline. Sorry, I didn't let you do much-"

"Ve~, come on now, Kiku! You need to stop apologizing for so much when you've done so little." Feliciano reached over and placed a friendly pat on the other's shoulder, "I'll put the timeline together, how about that?"

Kiku stared, as if he was studying him. Feliciano retracted his hand, blinking at him. Did he do something wrong? Oh boy. Did Kiku want to do the whole project? Before he could doubt himself more, Kiku let a small smile on his face, "Alright, you can do so." he flipped the papers so it was facing the redhead, who had a childish excited look on his face. He immediately started to paste everything together. Kiku leaned forward, watching his hands gently place things, "You have quick hands, Feliciano-san."

Was that a compliment? "Oh, thanks," Feliciano smiled, but kept his eyes on the thing in front of him.

"Gentle like. Are you, by any chance, an artist?"

"Si," he nodded, "I have eighth hour art. It's fun!"

"Eighth hour..." Kiku leaned back a bit, "You are in the class with my friend Monika then."

Uh oh. Feliciano tried his best not to stop what he was doing. He tried so hard not to look up at Kiku with interest. He especially tried very hard to not smile a goofy grin, "Am I?" he asked, playing dumb, "who is Monika?"

Kiku leaned forward again, "She's hard to miss, actually. Tall and blonde with short hair. She wears glasses that hide her blue eyes."

Feliciano hummed, "Oh, yeah. I've seen her..." he said with as little interest as he could manage, "She and I keep running into each other. I didn't know it was her name..."

"Really?" asked Kiku, raising an eyebrow, "She knows yours. In fact, when I told her about this project, she talked about you a little."

At this, Feliciano couldn't help looking at him with wide eyes, "What did she-... um," he looked back down to his work, "Really? What did she say?"

Kiku darted his eyes, "She said, uh..." he coughed, "she said you challenge Gilbert in the most idiotic category." Feliciano could feel the honesty. Seriously. "That you obviously need glasses for bumping into her so much, and too excitable..."

The Italian let out a mental sigh. No way he has a chance. How do you change a woman's mind about yourself if it's completely true? "But," Kiku added, getting the other boy to pay attention again, "She also said you were entertaining, sometimes... and she called you cute."

Feliciano stopped everything he was doing and looked at him, "Cute?"

Kiku bit his lip, "Not sure if I should be telling you all this, Feliciano-san..." He gave an awkward cough, "but yes. 'like a child in a candy store' kind of cute, she said."

Yes. This is it. He now knows. He still has a chance. Throughout the rest of work, he had a smile on his face. And Lovina was getting really annoyed with it.