Study, Nikogaku, Study! - Day 5

by Wind Chijmes

Day five.

Friday.

None of the boys had expected the study camp to be put into practice, not to mention having it actually work. The dream to graduate together was starting to take the same incredible, frightening, thrilling shape as Koshien. It made them realise just how far away they were from fulfillment, and how much harder they had to work to get there, and despite it all, gave them the kind of joy of accomplishment that none of them had ever felt.

That was the power and fear of daring to dream.

The standing man in the office took a deep bow. "Thank you, everyone! We will be forever grateful!"

There was a moment's silence, before genuine smiles and laughter echoed in the air as the other teachers regarded him. "They are our students too, Kawato-sensei."

He remained in bow for a while longer, before straightening and tried to keep his composure. This had been a strange year. The tears came all too easily, often when he was reminded that this was the kids' senior year. Final year. The time where you chalked up the good and bad times, and realised they would all come to an end, nonetheless, to make way for new beginnings.

"THANK YOU!" he said again, before lifting the files from the floor and leaving the office.

++++++++++

"Okay. Today is Friday. Last day."

"Yeah!"

"Last, last day."

"We get it!"

Mikoshiba winced and rubbed at his head. "Sorry, guys," he said to the exasperated faces around him. "It's just that I'm reminded of the exams and now I'm suddenly nervous and – " he didn't continue as he was pelted with a rain of smacks and kicks. "Oww! Stop it!"

It took a while before all of them settled down again, gathered in their tight ten-man circle. Their hands were clutched at their backs, each youth as solemn as the next.

"We're going to replace all the baseball sessions today with studying," Mikoshiba said seriously. Some of the others sighed, but most seemed resigned to it. "Only today. I hope – "

"That the god of baseball would forgive us."

They stared at Imaoka.

"Sorry," the boy grinned weakly. "Just a thought."

"I hope," Mikoshiba picked up where he left off. "That we would all be able to go the whole way and cross the finish line together! So, let's do our best today!"

In perfect unison, all ten youths gave a roar of encouragement.

"All right!" Wakana straightened and rolled his shoulders in the way he would when he was readying himself for combat. Then he stopped and groaned. "Ah damn, now I'm nervous too."

The others were also looking rather antsy and anxious themselves as they began gathering their books and notes. Mikoshiba looked around him, feeling no small amount of pride, and some wretched indecision when his gaze fell on Aniya. This must be a watered-down version of the Morning-After Syndrome. The big difference was of course, he had only kissed Aniya, and not had sex or something.

Right. Sex. He hadn't meant to think about that! Tearing his gaze away, Mikoshiba tried to remain composed, his chest rising and falling in rapid beats.

"Oi, Mikoshiba," someone called out to him.

He looked up and saw Sekikawa and Shinjo...and Aniya staring at him. "Y-Yes?"

"We're hitting the library," Sekikawa said to him. "You coming along?"

"What about Aniya?" Mikoshiba blurted.

There was a pause of surprise from them. Aniya took a step towards him, his face guarded. "I'm going with them. Why?"

"Well," Mikoshiba hedged. "Then maybe I shouldn't – " he realised what he was about to say, and stopped, feeling properly ashamed about it. But it was too late. As always, Aniya was quick to pick up on his slip. For a brief moment, Aniya's face fell, but then he looked as nonchalant as ever a heartbeat later, and Mikoshiba wondered if he had imagined it after all.

"Whatever. It's up to you," Aniya said shortly, before turning and making his way out of the club room. Shinjo and Sekikawa just tossed each other confused and suspicious looks as they followed behind Aniya.

Feeling like crap, Mikoshiba ran after them. His team mates needed his help and he really shouldn't be thinking of anything else but aiding them in their study. "I'm coming too," he told Sekikawa with a sheepish smile. "I thought I had a meeting with Kawato-sensei, but I guess not, after all." Now he felt even worse for using Kawato-sensei as an excuse, but he was desperate.

Sekikawa grinned easily back at him, not one to mind trivial matters. Shinjo nodded tersely. But all Mikoshiba really noticed was that Aniya walked straight ahead without any acknowledgement of his presence.

Mikoshiba sighed to himself. This was going to be a long day.

++++++++++

It was hard to get everyone out of the club room, and even harder to keep them from popping in randomly.

Of course, Yufune was having none of it. He would absolutely allow no one to enter while he was still working on the paper planes. There were ten left, one for each of them, and Yufune was as uptight about them as he was about his hair. Which meant, he was acting in a very antsy, very anal, very bratty fashion.

So Okada quickly figured out that the best way to get through this situation was to leave Yufune to work alone on that stuff, while Okada guarded the door from the inside. Looking pleased with himself, he lifted the duplicate keys. He had managed to persuade Mikoshiba to return them, after swearing never to lock people into rooms again.

Well, too bad about that...Okada locked the club room, and sat down with his back against the door. This was the surest way to ensure privacy, and his own sanity because Yufune was jumping at every sound and looking up as though someone was gonna come barging in any moment. Already Okada had ignored Hiyama's yowling outside the door and told him to come back in a couple of hours' time.

Finding himself with nothing to do except watch Yufune work on the origami, Okada opened his bag and took out his very battered sketch book. He did fail Art, after all. Sighing under his breath, Okada swirled his pencil in one hand, letting it flip through his fingers, chewed on the end of it, stuck it in his hair and twirled it around one of his dreadlocks as he pondered.

Then, he put it to the paper and began to draw.

++++++++++

The session was actually going better than expected. Shinjo and Sekikawa were still progressing slowly as they struggled to keep their focus on something other than baseball. But they were also progressing surely and that pleased Mikoshiba.

As an added bonus, they were even back in the library now, which Mikoshiba decided was still the best place to study. That was, of course, after they had begged the librarian to forgive the ruckus they had caused two days ago. Mikoshiba spoke imploringly, Shinjo and Sekikawa looked suitably contrite, and Aniya, the main perpetrator of their first ejection from the library, turned on the charm and the librarian relented.

"Here." Shinjo turned his book and showed it to Mikoshiba. There was some embarrassment on Shinjo's face that never managed to ease even now.

Mikoshiba smiled and pretended not to notice Shinjo's discomfort. The other boy was still not the greatest at relating to people in ways that had nothing to do with violence. He checked the revision questions that Shinjo had just completed, and blinked.

"All correct, Shinjo," Mikoshiba said in pleasant surprise. "See, you can do it if you just put your mind to it."

Shinjo shrugged and took back the book, but even he couldn't really hide the pleased light in his eyes.

Mikoshiba was about to comment further, when he felt his handphone vibrating. He excused himself and flipped it open. Text message. He scrolled through it.

Let's make a deal.

His heartbeat picked up. Aniya. That was the first actual response he had gotten from Aniya ever since the start of the study session.

Raising his eyes, Mikoshiba looked across at the table diagonally to theirs. That was where Sekikawa and Aniya were seated. Sekikawa was staring down at the questions, his pen working quickly as he wrote. Opposite him, Aniya was watching him intently, only speaking now and then to correct him. It surprised Mikoshiba, he had to admit. He hadn't really thought Aniya would take the whole tutoring thing seriously, but as it turned out, he could be as good an instructor on the field, and off. It was not so much he had brilliant teaching methods, but he just had a way of ordering and bullying people into performing their best. It worked for Sekikawa anyway.

Right now, Aniya looked the perfect picture of the student teacher, except for the handphone that he held in one hand.

As discreetly as possible, Mikoshiba typed his reply into the keypad, and sent it.

What deal?

He sneaked a glance at Aniya, and saw the boy slide his handphone open and glance down at the message, all the time maintaining that neutral expression on his face. His thumb moved quickly over the keypad and Mikoshiba got the next message.

Cloze-passage exercise, English textbook, page fifty-three. Let's see if Sekikawa or Shinjo does it better. And to prove I'm not cheating, I'll place my bet on Shinjo, and you on Sekikawa.

Mikoshiba stared so long at the message, that it was only when Shinjo batted him on the head that he snapped out of his thoughts. "Oww – huh?"

"You're daydreaming."

"Uh sorry..." Mikoshiba began apologetically, his eyes darting to the English textbook, and back to Shinjo again. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. "Shinjo, can you open your English textbook at page fifty-three? Have you done that exercise before?" The words left his mouth in a rush.

There was a flurry of flipping pages, before Shinjo looked up with a shake of head. "Nope, never seen it before."

"Would – you like to try it?"

Shinjo held his gaze for a while, as if calculating why Mikoshiba was behaving in such a twitchy manner, before he shrugged yes. As Mikoshiba watched Shinjo begin to slowly work on the questions, he took out his handphone again. His fingers felt clammy, but he was starting to see the benefit in the possible outcome and he sent his message.

What are the terms?

Again, Aniya was quick to reply, and Mikoshiba stared even longer at his reply this time around.

If I win, I get a kiss from you.

Mikoshiba's insides did a somersault, but somehow...he had almost expected that response from Aniya. He looked up and saw Aniya's gaze on him, gleaming with dark promise. He looked away again, feeling a blush creep over his face. Damn Aniya. Did that boy have a single decent thought beyond baseball and physical stuff? Trying not to let his embarrassment show, Mikoshiba thought for a long moment, hedging his odds. Then he responded:

If I win, you'll run fifty rounds tomorrow.

Barely had he sent the message, when the reply beeped.

Deal.

Mikoshiba chewed on his lips. That was fast. Aniya seemed ridiculously confident. Then again, when was he ever less than confident? Mikoshiba shifted in his seat, momentarily feeling remorseful for using Sekikawa and Shinjo as a bet...but, compared to the utterly confusing state of affairs between he and Aniya, Mikoshiba had to be selfish for this time. Just the night before, he had that same dream about hard hands over his skin and warm kisses. He had bolted awake, damp and flushed and horrified. So, Mikoshiba had to put an end to this weird thing between he and Aniya before it spiralled out of control and his mind gave in to his body.

Mikoshiba looked up, not surprised to see Aniya looking at him. He met Aniya's gaze unflinchingly and thumbed in his reply.

Deal.

++++++++++

Turning over the last fold of the origami creation in his fingers, Yufune allowed himself a smile. Finally, his work was accomplished! It had been such a painstaking process Yufune was almost sure he would never attempt such a ridiculous feat again.

Carefully, he picked up the ten origami planes he had finished folding and packed them away in the box that he had been hiding in his locker for the past couple of months. He stashed the box away securely and turned the lock. A curious light-headed feeling was starting to wash over him. It must be a sort of delayed euphoria. He had banged in enough Math revision in five days than he had in a year, and finished his origami project. Just wow.

Cue audience applause. Yufune stretched his arms over his head, closed his eyes and soaked in the feeling of accomplishment. Now he was ready for both Koshien and graduation, baby! Abruptly, he remembered that he was not alone in the club room, and he cracked one eye open.

"Mou...Okada..." Both eyes flying open now, Yufune stared down at the boy seated at the door.

Okada was fast asleep, his head propped up on his elbows and knees, only half a face visible in the midst of a shock of dreadlocks. A half-completed paper plane was strewn on the floor near his feet. Yufune picked it up, eyed it critically, then snorted and tossed it away.

"How are you going to pass Art, idiot..." Yufune sighed in a mixture of humour and wryness as he crouched down before the sleeping boy. He reared back a little as he felt the crunch beneath his shoes.

Blinking, Yufune picked up the notebook gingerly. It looked like it'd been through the dryer; that was how battered it looked. When he flipped open to the first page, he realised it was a sketch book, and recognised it now as Okada's faithful companion in school. This must be the book that Okada always doodled in when he was at his most bored. Grinning, Yufune began turning over the pages.

While Okada was certainly no artist, that much Yufune was able to tell from the rough, raw lines of the sketches, he made up for it with sheer randomness. There were manga versions of the teachers, the more hated the teacher, the more deformed the character design. There were sketches of various foods; a whole page dedicated to about a hundred types and forms of sushi, another page committed to foreign concoctions of burgers and pizzas and towering sundaes. There were images of unrelated things that caught Okada's eye in everyday life. A ratty bus-stop, a park of children, plastic bags floating across a deserted road, clouds of all shapes and sizes.

Yufune laughed under his breath as he flipped the pages, then stopped short in surprise as he reached the centerfold and saw an exact replication of the Dream of Koshien poster that had been tacked to their club room wall since the year before. Around the replica, Okada had also written the names of all ten members, as well as Kawato-sensei and Yagi, in an elaborate script.

Yufune hesitated now. He felt like he was intruding into Okada's innermost thoughts. As he was about to close it, a bookmark fell out of the last several pages. Yufune picked it up and with the other hand, began turning the sketch book from the last page. He had no idea where the bookmark came out from.

Then he reached a worn page at which the sketch book seemed to be permanently bent at the spine from constant re-visiting by the user. Should be this one. Yufune turned it over, ready to slot in the bookmark again, and he froze.

Immortalised on the white paper, was the drawing of a boy.

Yufune's fingers touched lightly to the drawing, tracing the faint lines of wind-blown hair barely tamed by a scattering of clips, a face with a sun-bright smile, and pensive eyes that gazed into the distance.

Yufune smiled a smile that was strikingly similar to the boy in the picture. He slid the bookmark in, closed the book, and laid it beside Okada. Lifting a hand to Okada's face, he pushed aside a stray lock of hair.

He dipped his head and pressed a kiss to Okada's cheek, lingering over the warm skin. "Next time, just tell me. Idiot~"

++++++++++

It took all his concentration. In fact, it took concentration that he did not know he even possessed. He'd been in plenty of situations before, many of them of the physical type. He had taken beatings, given out a lot more, and learned since boyhood that a fist often communicated better than anything else. It was simply the best way to silence a scolding, a reproach, words of fear and disappointment and humiliation.

Right now, this fist of his wasn't doing much talking at all. Wrapped around a pen, it hovered in brain-numbing indecision above the revision questions. Feeling the words starting to swim before his vision, Shinjo squeezed his eyes shut and did that self-psyching mantra again. Concentrate, focus, concentrate, focus, concentrate.

When he opened his eyes again, Shinjo nearly freaked when he saw the other three boys staring at him like a row of creepy dolls. There was Mikoshiba, his unofficial tutor, who was giving that look. That pleading, hopeful, fearful look that when rejected, made you feel about as great as kicking a small animal. There was Aniya, who was seated back in his chair, with his patented cold smirk firmly in place, seeming a picture of Zen-like composure if not for a certain glint in his gaze. And lastly, Sekikawa, strategically seated between Mikoshiba and Aniya and looking mighty uncomfortable as he seemed to sense the same tension between the two boys that Shinjo was feeling right now.

Doing his level best to ignore his audience, Shinjo filled in the answers to final two questions. It was just an English exercise, for fuck's sake. The air seemed to be clogged with tension.

"I'm done," he announced.

"Good," Aniya said, straightening from his position.

"We'll help you mark your answers," Mikoshiba added quickly.

For the next ten minutes, as Aniya and Mikoshiba marked their answers with overly-intense concentration, Shinjo sat there and had a mental conversation with Sekikawa. It was a useful trick they had learnt over the course of five days of wrestling with academia.

Sekikawa darted accusatory glances at each boy on either side of him, before looking back at Shinjo. What the fuck are they up to?

Shinjo shrugged carefully. No idea, man.

In reply, Sekikawa shook his head, unconvinced. There's definitely something up.

Shinjo nodded. Damn straight.

It had started from the morning, when Mikoshiba was clearly trying to avoid Aniya. For the rest of the day, even after the study session had began, the weird balancing act between Aniya and Mikoshiba continued to play out. If Aniya sat on one seat, Mikoshiba made sure there was someone else in between. It seemed to irritate Aniya, but he would do nothing about it. And it went on and on.

"Done." Aniya looked up.

Sekikawa immediately snapped to attention. "How much did I get?"

"Twenty-one marks out of thirty," Aniya gave a small, but genuine smile as Sekikawa whooped and was instantly glared down by the librarian.

That was a good mark. That was a more-than-good mark actually, Shinjo conceded. Sekikawa had admitted honestly to him that he absolutely sucked at his studies. Period. Frowning, Shinjo glanced at Mikoshiba, who seemed to be taking an unusually long time with his marks.

At length, after what seemed like two or three re-calculations, Mikoshiba looked up with an undecipherable expression.

"Shinjo, your marks are..." Mikoshiba began.

Everyone leaned forward in anticipation.

"Twenty...two." Mikoshiba smiled at him, looking a little defeated at the same time. "Well done."

Shinjo blinked in disbelief.

Sekikawa moaned like the world had ended. "Man...beaten by one mark!" But he grinned when Shinjo reached over and thwacked him on the head.

And then the weirdness began anew.

Smirking, Aniya turned to Mikoshiba as if to say something, but then he froze and the smirk quickly darkened to a scowl. It wasn't hard to see why. Mikoshiba was looking at Aniya with the most pained look on his face like Aniya had just ordered his execution.

"Same place," Aniya gritted out to Mikoshiba, then managed a less-snappish response to Shinjo and Sekikawa. "Good job, guys. I'm gonna go get some air."

With that, the four-man study team abruptly found themselves one member less.

++++++++++

As a general rule of thumb, Aniya detested attachments.

It wasn't so much out of a macho-bravado inclination to close himself off to the world, but more of the practicality of it. He just didn't think maintaining an attachment was worth half the effort and time. Of course, not all shared his views. In fact, Yagi had fought with him once, disappointed and majorly pissed off, over his fuck-'em-leave-'em philosophy. Her words, not his. Aniya hadn't denied it, and they never talked about it since, quietly maintaining whatever that remained of the illusion they ever had of each other.

Now, Mikoshiba.

Right.

Because of that idiot, Aniya had been spending the last thirty minutes getting some air, but what he really got was a major mind fuck. So he'd won the bet with Mikoshiba, and now just waited the collection of his prize. Except for one thing Aniya hadn't counted on. The sense of victory was not there. It was that – look on Mikoshiba's face just now that did it. Like Aniya was some sick stalker.

Well.

All right, maybe he did stalk Mikoshiba – had been stalking Mikoshiba for some time now. But it wasn't like Mikoshiba hated it, right? The first kiss had been all Aniya, no doubt. But the second one, yesterday in the storage room, was good both ways, right? He was hundred-fucking-percent sure he felt Mikoshiba kissing him back, and quite enthusiastically too. So why would Mikoshiba be suddenly be all cold and pissy again today? It was like getting kicked back to square one every time Aniya was this close to winning. And then having it happen over, and over, and over again like a really unfunny cosmic joke.

Aniya lifted his fingers to the bridge of his nose and rubbed it tiredly – a childhood habit he never managed to break. Now Aniya had been with girls, obviously. And a few boys, not so obviously. He had them all sorted out quite carefully; he always had a plan. Identify goal, pursue goal, achieve goal. There weren't supposed to be pitfalls in between to force him into thinking and feeling.

The more he thought about it, the faster he ran out of ideas, and the less escape routes he could find.

Aniya Keiichi, he told himself with something like wry horror, you are fucked.

So now here he was, waiting at the field washroom for god's sake, his stomach clenching in nervous anticipation as though he was awaiting judgement. The sound of the door opening made him jerk and look up, before he consciously steadied himself and schooled his expression into nonchalance.

He sensed the figure approach, softly and cautiously. Aniya stayed right where he was, on the bench where he had coerced Mikoshiba into the thigh stretches, and remained still even as Mikoshiba came into view.

"Aniya," Mikoshiba said quietly.

Aniya didn't speak, not just yet, and simply eyed the other boy. He'd learned that not only would a simple, direct stare unsettle the other party, more importantly, it gave Aniya time to decide on his own response.

"Well..." Mikoshiba seemed to have trouble forming coherent speech. He looked around them with a conflicted, yet familiar air that told Aniya that Mikoshiba certainly remembered this place well. "Shall we do it?" he said, more quickly this time, like he couldn't wait to get it over and done with.

"You sound like you don't want to," Aniya said, and instantly wanted to strangle himself. That was not smooth.

"Well, no, I mean...we did have a bet...and I lost and the terms were that I'll have to kiss you. Right? So let's do it." Mikoshiba shrugged, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. "Besides, even if I refuse, you'll do it anyway."

"I won't," Aniya said, and surprised himself at how cold he sounded. Something in Mikoshiba's words had stung in a really bad way. So maybe Aniya had no morals and played more games than he should. But he was just about done playing, and he didn't get off on one-sided things. He wanted his partners to enjoy him as much as he did them. One of the few principles he had. "It's up to you now," he said levelly.

Now Mikoshiba looked up and met his gaze properly. Emotions warred in his eyes, and each one so clearly expressed Aniya felt like he was reading an open book. Doubt, fear, confusion.

"You don't want to?" Mikoshiba blurted, eyebrows drawing together in a frown. "You laid down the terms, didn't you? Isn't this what you want from me?"

That wasn't really what Aniya was expecting to hear. He'd thought Mikoshiba would be bolting out of here already. But he was still there, hovering in indecision and waiting for Aniya to call the shots. And Aniya would too. Just not today.

"No," Aniya said. "I laid down the terms, and you lost the bet, so what? If you don't want to do it, say it, and we'll just get out of here and back to the club room. Just like that."

Mikoshiba was silent for a long moment, hurt and anger sparking in his eyes, and he was visibly fighting his emotions when he finally spoke. "What do you mean just like that?" His voice rose. "You barge into my life, screw me around, and now you want us to back to the club room and pretend nothing's ever happened? Is this some sick game you're playing?"

Fury surged in Aniya, and it was painful and ugly and he didn't give a damn. "I didn't mean that," he snarled. "I just wish that for one time, you would do what you want to do. But then, you never seem to know what you want, so maybe I should just do it my way and fuck you on this bench, how about that? Huh? Is that what you want?" That was another one of Aniya's talents. Twisting where it hurt the most.

Mikoshiba reared back as if he was slapped, his eyes widening in pained shock.

I am the devil, Aniya realised with some regret, and waited for Mikoshiba to leave like he surely would. Or perhaps give Aniya another well-deserved punch. Or stop talking to Aniya for the rest of his life.

Mikoshiba turned his face aside, lips pale with the effort to keep from breaking down. When he finally gathered himself together and looked up, Aniya could not read him at all. For a few seconds, Aniya watched in dumb silence as Mikoshiba began moving towards him in a purposeful stride. He raised his eyes as Mikoshiba stopped right before him. The boy's usually sweet features were twisted in a wild mask, the likes of which Aniya had not seen before. Maybe the punch then, Aniya thought for one crazy moment. God, just not on the same cheek.

Then, Mikoshiba exhaled, sat down on the bench, leaned forward, grabbed Aniya's shoulders.

And Aniya felt himself being kissed. At least, it was probably a kiss, if the feel of lips closing quickly and mechanically over his own was anything to go by. It was over before Aniya knew it. Mikoshiba was again some distance away, his hands clenched in his lap, looking quite stunned by what he'd just done.

"Well..." Aniya's voice came out a bit of a croak. He cleared his throat, and tried again. "That sucked." Okay, shit, that wasn't what he meant to say.

Unexpectedly, Mikoshiba winced. "Yeah, it did." His face crumpled and he looked crestfallen. "But that was – what I wanted – what I've been wanting to do."

Aniya couldn't think; his brain felt like it'd been wrung dry. The words spilled out of him without his bidding. "If...you're going to kiss me...then do it like you mean it." His throat was so dry it hurt. Aniya couldn't think of any other time he was as pathetic as he was now. But maybe just this once was okay.

Then Aniya stopped breathing altogether, as Mikoshiba turned towards him and placed his hands on his shoulders again. Both of them pretended not to notice that Mikoshiba's hands were shaking.

"I'm really sorry," Mikoshiba said softly.

Despite the situation, Aniya managed a smirk. "You didn't punch all that hard."

"It's not that." The grin on Mikoshiba's face was the bashful one that would completely scrunch his face up like he was a kid. "It's for making the great Aniya Keiichi behave like a complete idiot today."

"What! C'mon, I wasn't behaving all that – "

The rest of Aniya's retort just about got shoved back down his throat as he was kissed again. He felt the difference at once. Mikoshiba kissed him like he was putting all his heart into it, with the kind of pure earnestness that Aniya knew he would never again get from anyone else. And Aniya tasted the difference too, in the way Mikoshiba sucked and nipped hesitantly at his lips, tongue sliding out shyly to explore. It was still a barely-passable kiss, but it would get marks for effort. Aniya let his eyes fall shut and surrendered to this kiss. Full marks for effort.

When Mikoshiba finally pulled away, his hands still remained on Aniya's shoulders, and they both breathed in ragged pants, suddenly embarrassed. Aniya remembered he was supposed to be chivalrous that day. He looked at Mikoshiba.

Fuck, what the hell. Aniya lunged forward, wrapping one arm around Mikoshiba's waist to pull him against his chest. Cupping the back of the boy's head with his other hand, Aniya yanked Mikoshiba back into another kiss, smothering his protesting yelp. He took the kiss deep and hard, Mikoshiba's lips parting easily as Aniya thrust his tongue inside the soft folds like he was claiming territory.

Jerking away with a dizzying rush, Aniya breathed and pressed forward again, nipping wet pecks over Mikoshiba's chin and jawline. His fingers wrenched at uniform buttons as he moved down Mikoshiba's throat in a trail of punishing kisses. He paused at the pulse point, feeling it flutter beneath his lips like a trapped butterfly, then he sucked hard at it with lips and teeth, enough to leave a bruise for days. Mikoshiba's hands were clenched tight around fistfuls of Aniya's uniform shirt, his entire body shuddering under the harsh caress.

It was a bit too much, Aniya sensed it at the back his mind, but he had been in a mess over Mikoshiba for a while now, and needed more than a little kiss to sate his frustration. Once he had managed to regain some control, he eased off, drawing the other boy into himself, kissing the side of his neck gently. It seemed to work because Mikoshiba just sort of sank bonelessly into Aniya's embrace.

When he finally released Mikoshiba, the boy was a complete wreck. Shirt rumpled and opened at the chest, hair hanging in tatters around his flushed face, eyes glazed, and his mouth wet and quivering.

"Aniya..." Mikoshiba murmured, blinking kittenishly at him.

Great, fucking great. Aniya looked away and forced himself not to jump right in there and finish things. His body was so not made for celibacy.

"You cheated."

Aniya's eyebrows drew together in an uncomprehending scowl. Cheated – what?

"You said a kiss." Mikoshiba actually looked petulant about it. "That's one kiss."

Oh. "Sue me," Aniya snorted. When Mikoshiba opened his mouth to speak, Aniya sighed and gestured with one hand to interrupt. "I know, I know. I'm running fifty fucking rounds tomorrow."

"Actually..." Mikoshiba said carefully, suddenly not quite able to look at Aniya in the eye.  His lips curled up in a small smile of embarrassment and wonder. "I was going to say I liked it."

Ohh. Aniya felt the smirk curving over his own face. Now that was worth thinking about. "Well," he drawled lazily, stretching forward not so discreetly and cupped Mikoshiba's chin with one hand to lift his face up. "We can do it again," he said seriously. "When you want to."

"You're not going to cheat again, are you?"

"...I'll try."

"What!"

"Oi, I'm being honest here, all right!"

"Honest? You can run rounds till you drop dead tomorrow, you idiot!"

"If my Captain runs with me, I don't mind."

The implications of that proposal took a while to sink in. Aniya tried to look like he didn't care all that much. Mikoshiba tried not to look like he cared far more than he should.

At length, Mikoshiba stood up, and extended a hand towards Aniya. "Maybe," he said, the telltale blush he could never seem to hide from Aniya already on his face. "Let's go back to the club room."

Grinning, Aniya took his hand. "Aa.

++++++++++

By twenty minutes past six, all the boys were gathered in the club room. Some, like Aniya and Mikoshiba, made their way there on their own accord. The others were informed on their handphones about the group meeting. There was also something else. The meeting was called by Kawato-sensei.

Kawato-sensei was already there, waiting for them. He looked bright and altogether too cheerful , as usual. Next to him was a high stack of what looked like really thick files of academic stuff. The boys eyed the stack suspiciously as they drifted into the room and took up their usual places.

"Good evening, everyone!" Kawato-sensei greeted them enthusiastically. Without waiting for their response, he barrelled on. "I see that everyone looks energetic and excited!"

The boys stared around at one another's identical stressed and tired expressions, and wondered if Kawato-sensei was on crack.

"Where've you been all this time?" Aniya was the first to say exactly what every boy had been thinking. His arms were folded at his chest and he looked darkly annoyed. "You running out on us?"

"You abandoned us!" Yufune accused.

Kawato-sensei held up his hands. "Calm down, guys, calm down. Let me explain."

"This'll better be good," Wakana muttered, still miffed.

The smile on Kawato-sensei's face grew gentle and apologetic. "I can understand your frustration. It must have been tough, managing your schoolwork on your own, and relying on yourself and your friends to solve problems. Now you understand the difficulty of being a student, and not just a sportsman. Let's hear about your progress. Hiratsuka and Imaoka?"

Imaoka shifted a little awkwardly under the sudden limelight. "Well, I've done about half an assessment book of Chemistry exercises."

"And I've COMPOSED A LOVE POEM FOR TOUKO-CHAN!" Hiratsuka said with a passionate roar.

Everyone eyed Hiratsuka with a fair amount of wariness and a small dose of respect. Here was a man who failed literature. They didn't even know a subject existed in the school! They also didn't know Hiratsuka was capable of any literary thought beyond bulldozing through life in general. But even then...no, none of them really wanted to hear a love poem dedicated to Yagi Touko. That would be worst thing next to freaky.

"Well done, Imaoka!" Kawato-sensei praised. "And Hiratsuka – we – uh – " His beam faltered a teensy bit.

Hiratsuka was already standing up and striking a magnificent pose. "My genius must be shared with the world! Now LISTEN!"

They listened. Hiratsuka cleared his throat.

"I go to you ~~
along dream paths,
yet those trysts
is less than a single glimpse
in the waking world. ~~"

The boys stared at one another in stunned silence.

"What the fuck is a tryst?" Hiyama growled, deciding that love poems were not his thing at all.

"Poetic sex," Aniya said with a straight face.

"A secret meeting between two lovers," Mikoshiba interjected, shooting Aniya a reproachful frown.

The rest made the necessary connection. Dreams – trysts – Hiratsuka – Yagi Touko. By the time they were done with the mental imagery, everyone looked a little ill.

"It's uh – good!" Kawato-sensei jumped in to intervene. "Really good, in fact! I hope Wakana and Hiyama have done just as well?"

In reply, Wakana held up their Biology textbooks, which had been dissected and colour-highlighted to death. "We kicked Biology in the ass," he smirked. "Oh and, Okada," he lifted his chin at the boy. "Pulmonary arteries carry venous blood from the right ventricle of the heart to the lungs."

Okada snorted at having his own words thrown back into his face. "Fucking A-student now, are you?" he insulted good-naturedly.

Kawato-sensei smiled indulgently at them, before directing his gaze at Okada and Yufune. "What about the two of you?"

"I did a hell lot of Math revision, nyaa!" Yufune crowed, not one to be modest about his achievements. "And Okada..." A thoughtful pause. "Okada watched me do Math."

"Slacker!" Everyone else laughed at Okada while the boy glared and tried to aim kicks at them from where he was lounging.

"I failed Art!" Okada protested. "Not core subjects like you idiots!"

"That's true, nyaa!" Yufune interrupted, seeming at first to be defending Okada. Then, his gaze slid slyly to one side and he pointed to where Aniya and Mikoshiba were seated. "At least Okada helped me revise my work. Just ask Aniya and Mikoshiba what they've been up to!"

Mikoshiba visibly jumped at the sudden reference to himself and Aniya. "Eh! Uhm – I – " He faltered at the teasing, knowing sparkle in Yufune's eyes.

"I've been working on my moral perspective on life," Aniya replied archly.

"Is that so?" Yufune responded with a sweet smile. "Because I think you've also been working on Mi –"

"Helping Shinjo and Sekikawa!" Mikoshiba cut him off, looking unnaturally flustered. "We – we've been helping them with their schoolwork."

"That's good!" Kawato-sensei said, in complete oblivion of the innuendo flying around him, and unknowingly coming to Mikoshiba's rescue. "And now, I will offer you my explanation as to why I was absent for the past few days." He gestured to the stack of files. "Look."

They looked at the stack of files, uncomprehending.

"These," Kawato-sensei patted the top of the stack. "Are what I've been working on for the past few days. Compilations of all your teachers' love for you. And I want Shinjo and Sekikawa to be the first to receive them." As he spoke, he picked up two files from the top of the stack and went over to them. "Here."

Sekikawa was the first to flip through his file, pouncing on it and quickly turning over the pages. Shinjo followed a little more slowly, deliberately taking his time, expression wary as he read the contents of the file. However, their eventual responses were startlingly similar. Both boys kept really quiet and their faces grew solemn.

The other boys stared anxiously at them, no idea at all what was up. Kawato-sensei took another pile of files, and began giving them out as he called each boy.

It didn't take long for the rest of the team to discover what had silenced Shinjo and Sekikawa. Each file contained revision notes, exercises, tips and good-luck messages from every single one of their subject teachers, and specifically addressed to each individual boy in the team. Even the most cynical of their teachers had something good to say.

"Some of them," Kawato-sensei spoke gently. "Are just not so good at expressing themselves in person." He let the boys have the time to read the messages from their teachers, giving them the privacy to their own thoughts.

"With this – " Sekikawa spoke up abruptly. He fidgeted, looking defeated but not the least bit upset by it. "I guess we've run out of excuses not to graduate." His grin was infectious and it didn't take long before the others were smiling despite themselves.

"GOOD!" Kawato-sensei boomed suddenly, on fire now. "Let's do our cheer! COME ON!" He had one fist raised in the air like a flag. "ONE, TWO, THREE!"

Everyone blinked.

"STUDY, NIKOGAKU, STUDY!"

Silence.

Kawato-sensei was frozen in mid-fist-pump. "Eh?" He stared around the ten blank faces of his baseball boys. "EH?! Why are you ignoring me?!"

"Sensei, you're so noisy!"

"Go away, Kawato-sensei! You're getting in our way!"

"And don't come back until we're done!"

Just like that, Kawato-sensei abruptly found himself cleared out of the club room, with the door shut firmly behind him. Those rascals. He stared at the door for a moment, before sighing. Ah, it was just as well.

As he walked away and back towards the teacher's room, there was an unmistakable lightness to his step.

++++++++++

Almost seven hours now and counting.

He tried to stay away as long as possible, he really did. He busied himself with marking student scripts, preparing materials for the coming lessons, setting mini-quizzes for his weaker classes, even resorting to reading a magazine and actually getting more absorbed than he should, until the clock suddenly struck two.

He started, glancing around him. Was it that late already? A quick look at his watch confirmed that it was already two in the morning. That should have given the boys enough time as they had so demanded. He got up and stretched widely. It was now time to go back and see if the boys really could pull off that all-night cramming they had been so gung-ho about.

Outside the building, he kept his walk brisk in the chilly night air, and hurried towards the club room. When it came into view, he was duly amazed to see the lights still switched on from the inside. Could it be...Coming up to the door, he knocked softly on it. Silence. He knocked a little harder, and again, there was silence.

He turned the handle and pushed the unlocked door inwards, peering in at the same time. His gaze tracked around the room, before softening and turning wry.

Around the small club room lay ten youths, all soundly asleep. Some were on the couches and benches, their bodies curled up as small as possible. Others lay sprawled on the floor, heads cushioned on chests and stomachs, and legs entangled with arms. And a few, obviously accustomed to the pillows and bolsters at home, simply turned to their teammates as substitutes, huddling like little boy-children.

These big, oversized kids.

A smile on his lips, Kawato-sensei reached in and switched off the lights.

"Good night, everyone," he said and clicked the door shut behind him.

Prologue ~ Day 1 ~ Day 2 ~ Day 3 ~ Day 4 ~ Day 5 ~ Epilogue ~