Atsuki was pretty confident in himself when it came to tests. He studied for them and worked hard to prepare, but he didn't worry about them excessively; everything usually came to him pretty easily when he needed it to. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for all his friends.

Akira in particular was having a hard time as finals inched closer. His test scores had… not been the best. No matter how much Atsuki tried to study with him, he still ended up struggling anyway every time. Atsuki only got more determined to help him with every bad grade, and he was dead-set on helping Akira pass his finals.

They decided to study together for their English final at Akira's place, in his bedroom with all the windows open to fight off the summer heat. They had an almost endless supply of snacks to help get them through, including cakes from Sweet Ring. It was the evening, but it was still hot and the cicadas still made a racket just outside Akira's windows.

Atsuki held up flash cards with English words on one side and their Japanese counterparts on the back. He ate a little too much of the cake while he held them up and watched Akira struggle to think of the words. "You write or draw with it," he offered as a hint for one word between bites of tiramisu, "They come in different colors."

"A marker?" Akira finally asked, looking dejected already even though their study session had only recently begun.

Atsuki nodded. "Good job," he replied, pushing a gummy bear across the table between them. He wasn't sure what the best way was to motivate Akira to keep going, so he decided to try using candy. It seemed to be working so far.

"All right, next one!" Akira said, popping the gummy bear in his mouth. He seemed eager to continue for a moment, but he lost the eagerness as soon as he saw the next card. He didn't know that one either.

Atsuki waited a moment before offering more hints. "It's a direction," he said, picking the strawberry off a cake with his fork.

"Left. Right. Up. Down. Forwards. Backwards," Akira replied quickly. Too quickly.

Atsuki frowned at him. He didn't say a word, he just stared at Akira and frowned. That wasn't a good enough try for him.

"Come on," Akira whined, "I said the right one, didn't I? Give me a new one."

Still frowning, Atsuki reluctantly pushed a green gummy bear across the table to Akira. He picked out the next card and held it up to Akira. After Akira frowned again and stayed silent for a long moment, Atsuki assumed he'd need some help with this one too. "It's a verb and a noun," he offered, giving up on the cake to give Akira a serious stare.

Akira sighed. "Come on man, you know that doesn't help at all," he said, "Give me a real hint.

For a moment, Atsuki hesitated. He knew something that would be an excellent hint, but should he go for it? He hesitated a bit longer, but eventually he decided to go for it. He stood up and moved around the table to he was facing Akira.

"What are you doing?" Akira asked, but Atsuki didn't reply. "No seriously, what are you doing?" he asked again.

"Giving you a hint," Atsuki finally replied, nervously closing the distance between them and giving Akira a quick kiss on the lips.

Akira turned red before Atsuki even leaned away. He stared at Atsuki with his mouth slightly open, trying to think of something to say, but his brain was a jumbled mess. "Wha… why did you…" he kept trying, but nothing coherent would come to him. "Y-You… aren't you gonna say 'no homo' or something!?" he finally asked.

"No," Atsuki replied.

"You… You sure?"

"Yeah."

Akira needed another moment to collect his thoughts. "So you like me, Saijo?" he asked.

It was Atsuki's turn to blush now. He lifted the notecard that was still in his hand and covered as much of his face as possible with it. "…You still have to guess," he said seriously, still peeking at Akira from behind the notecard. "You already got two hints."

"Well I like you too, okay?" Akira told Atsuki, seemingly ignoring that they were supposed to be studying, "I like you a lot!" He didn't smile, but he didn't seem unhappy. He seemed more nervous than anything.

Atsuki got less and less sure of how to handle this situation by the minute. His face felt so warm that it was uncomfortable and his stomach felt like it was loaded with butterflies. He hated this feeling, but there had to be much worse feelings in the world. Still, he didn't know how to deal with any of this so he tried to steer the conversation back to their studying. "It's kiss. That's what the word was," he replied, not moving the card away from his face.

"Do I get a reward for that one too?," Akira asked, "You could give me a kiss instead of a gummy bear if you want. Maybe. It's just a suggestion." He smiled now, and it made the fluttering feeling in Atsuki's stomach even worse.

"You never guessed the word," Atsuki replied quickly.

"Can I get one anyway?"

Atsuki finally lowered the notecard. He still felt nervous, and still hesitated but he leaned in and kissed Akira again, this time much more thoughtfully.

They managed to get back to studying, and kept at it until it was so early in the morning they both ended up falling asleep surrounded by books and notecards. Atsuki woke up confused and leaning on Akira's shoulder. He couldn't figure out where he was at first or why he was leaning on Akira, but then the night before all came back to him and he realized what had happened. He also remembered that they had a final to take. He took out his phone and checked the clock. Their English final started in ten minutes.

"Hey, wake up," Atsuki yelled at Akira, shaking him a bit, "We have to go, we're late!"

They got to Kisaragi High School as quickly as possible, but they were too late and were told they couldn't take the test anymore. It seemed like all their studying ended up being for nothing, but both of them thought it was totally worth it.

Ahhhh I'm so nervous posting this ;w; This is my very first time writing this ship, so I'm sorry for any mistakes I surely made. OTL This is a Christmas gift for GintaxAlvissForever! I wanted to get you something quick since you've been so patient, thank you for waiting so long! I hope this is okay even though it didn't follow your prompt! I know I could never do it justice, so I tried something else. OTL OTL OTL