Shigure and Ayame had been doing something completely normal, for once in their lives. They'd simply been sitting at the table in the deserted classroom doing homework.

That was probably why they'd decided to make it more exciting.

The paper they were writing was about who would win in a fight between a samurai and a pirate (it was supposed to be about a historical battle, and they supposed that a samurai and a pirate had fought at least once), so they decided to act it out.

Ayame had quickly declared himself the Samurai (much more elegant than those ruffian pirates), and Shigure had been completely content with pretending the broom in his hand was a cutlass.

They had proceeded to fight with their brooms (which Aya had procured from the locked janitor's closet by way of rambling, like he did most things), and Shigure realized he had gravely underestimated his cousin's skill with said cleaning appliance.

His broom soon sailed across the room, causing Aya to laugh joyously in victory.

But Shigure was far from done. He was a pirate- pirates didn't stop when the swords were knocked from their hands! Nor did they let a perfect opportunity for a sneak attack because of their opponent's gloating slip by!

Next thing Ayame knew, he had been pinned to the ground and Shigure was grinning victoriously down at him.

The whole ordeal could have ended there, and it would have had the door opened only a moment later. Shigure had been in the process of standing up when they heard the knob turn, but they only looked over when they heard the gasp.

In the doorway stood a cherry-faced freshmen who couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from the imagined happenings before her.

What the poor girl saw was one handsome senior boy pinning a more effeminate senior boy (both of whom everyone already expected were gay, just not for each other seeing as they were cousins) to the ground.

Which was actually exactly what was going on, but in a completely different context.

It took a moment for the boys to process why the girl was so red (what was her problem? Had she never seen two people wrestle before?).

When they did, they locked eyes and smirked.

There would be no stuttering, no jumbled explanations, no embarrased excuses from these two boys who had every right to do all three. For Ayame and Shigure Sohma were shameless. They cared not for social conventions or expectations, and they absolutely reveled in awkward situations.

Despite this, Ayame did his darndest to look absolutely embarrassed at being caught. He ducked his head, turning away from the girl at the door to "hide his blush" (or, rather, his grin).

"Gure, I told you people would see us," he whined, not quite managing to tone down his usual overly-dramatic way of speaking.

"Aya," Shigure whispered as tenderly as he possibly could while simultaneously holding in wild giggles, "are you ashamed of us?"

"No! Gure, never!" Ayame gasped, whipping his head to stare into Shigure's eyes one more. He tried desperately not to look at the girl they were currently mentally scarring, because if he did he wouldn't be able to stay serious.

Shigure lifted a hand and placed it on Ayame's cheek (both ignored the squeak the girl let out).

"Aya..."

"Gure..."

"What are you two doing now?" From the doorway came the totally unaffected and unsurprised voice of the last member of the Mabudachi trio.

"Hari!" Shigure and Ayame exclaimed, completely dropping the act and standing up in a millisecond, if only to better grin at the only respectable member of their group. In front of him stood the still-traumatized girl, who seemed to have smoke coming out of her ears.

"You," Hatori called to a random student in the hallway, "bring her to the infirmary." The student obeyed without hesitation or question, as most people did when the serious teen gave an order, leaving the trio alone in the classroom.

"We were researching for our paper, Hari!" Shigure grinned cheekily, clasping his hands behind his back in a would-be-innocent manner. Hatori turned his gaze to Ayame, knowing the silver-haired teen would give him a straight answer. As straight as Ayame could be, anyway.

"The history paper, about a historical battle! We're writing about a samurai and a pirate, but we've never seen two of them fight before so we had to act it out! I was the samurai and Gure was the pirate, and the pirate won!"

There were so many logical fallacies in that statement that Hatori didn' even know where to begin.

He decided on something spiteful.

"You realize that neither of you have the necessary skills to be either pirates or samurais, right? Acting it out wouldn't help with who would really win."

Ayame gasped as if the thought hadn't even occurred to him.

"Don't worry, Aya," Shigure cut in cheerfully. "We'll just have to look up videos about samurai vs pirate fights and watch them all weekend!"

And Hatori had just doomed himself to a weekend of that. Not such a good idea.

"Besides," Hatori continued, trying to save his weekend by changing their topic, "that paper is supposed to be about a historic battle. A samurai vs a pirate isn't what they're looking for."

"Oh, but Hari," Shigure replied with his my-illogic-is-too-logical-for-you-to-refute grin, "if a samurai and a pirate ever did fight, it would be historical."

Hatori had no words for the idiots who were apparently his best friends.

"And we would have gotten more research done if Shigure hadn't... distracted me," Ayame tacked on suggestively.

Hatori reflected on the past with a somber appraisal, and decided it could have been worse. At least, it was better than his future would be if Shigure and Ayame made a habit of putting on shows like the the one he had just walked into.

And knowing them, it would become their favorite pastime.

His sanity was doomed.