Sooo, this has been in my folder for approximately three years. I revised a lot in it, and I'm still not happy with it, but I really cannot be bothered anymore. I just rather have it be out here and maybe make someone happy than for it to rot in the depths of my folders, you know.

To be honest, I had never really put any effort into anything at all. It always came to me. Life, magic, money; I've never had to work hard to get what I wanted. Except for one thing, but I will get to that later.

My entire family got sorted into Gryffindor, so naturally, when I put on the Sorting Hat, I expected to be sorted+ in the same house as well. The hat told me exactly what I already knew of myself and then shouted for the whole Hall to hear, "SLYTHERIN!"

I was surprised, yet it pleased me too. Yes, I had expected to be sorted in Gryffindor, but that didn't mean I liked the idea. To be sorted into Slytherin was a liberation. Of course, when I wrote to my parents that I was sorted into their rival house, they were… displeased, to say the very least. They didn't disown me per se, but they did make sure I'd never tell anyone else associated with our family about my disgrace.

Anyway, in my first year it quickly turned out I was a prodigy in every subject. Well, all except for Potions. In the first week of school it quickly became apparent that whatever potion I touched ended up in disaster and Professor Sakuma quickly took extra precautions whenever I stepped inside the classroom. It was a slight dent in my ego, sure, but nothing I couldn't handle.

During my second year I tried out for the Slytherin Quidditch team and became a Chaser. I scored often and our captain, Hyoudou, often had to bark down my ego whenever we won, especially after I gained a bit of a fan club. Other than that my second year was nothing special. I blew up a kettle—I swear I didn't do it on purpose!—and sent my then partner, Ryuuzaki, to the Hospital Wing for quite a while. I also got my head smashed in by a Bludger during the finals against Hufflepuff. I swear to god, that Shuu might look like a scrawny little twat, but he could throw even Amagi across the field.

In my third year something interesting finally happened. While I was watching the Sorting Ceremony of that year my eyes got pulled to a certain dark-skinned boy with light blue hair waiting to be sorted. I watched with interested, something very rare for me, as "Kurama, Norihito" walked towards the hat and put it on, the thing falling right over his eyes. It was silent for a long while, until the hat eventually shouted, "SLYTHERIN!"

I clapped along for the first time during the ceremony and watched as he came to sit near the end of the table. I received some odd looks from my friends, but I ignored them.

As we waited outside the Slytherin common room that evening for Meia and Giris to stop flirting and to perform their newly assigned prefect duties which included telling us the damn password, I saw Norihito standing slightly off to the side. I slipped silently towards him and leant casually against the wall, but just as I opened my mouth to say something, Giris finally said the password (Potato Peels) and let us all in. Norihito slipped inside before I could do anything.

The next morning I got up extra early, pissing off my roommates in the process. Ryuuzaki was already pissed at me for blowing off half his nose (I mean, it had grown back by now, thanks to Ms Kudou, so I don't know why he was still being iffy about it) and threw his alarm clock at my head. I ducked and jinxed his alarm to play static only until I re-entered the room and it would turn off. That would teach him to throw stuff at my gorgeous face.

I slipped off to breakfast after making sure I had thoroughly and loudly cleaned and clothed myself. To my surprise—and absolute delight—Norihito was already seated at the Slytherin table, sitting away from the others. I noticed one of them was Hyoudou, who raised an eyebrow at my unusually early arrival, but I was much more interested in the first-year. I sat down opposite of him and looked around for some toast. Norihito glanced up and frowned at me.

"Could you pass me the butter?" I asked, running a hand through my hair and flashing him a grin.

He did, carefully too as if he was afraid I was going to do something awful, and kept frowning. I just smiled and started working on my breakfast. I noticed him glancing around the hall before he fixed his frown back on me again.

"Can I help you, or something?" he asked.

All right, I'm saying this now, but hell, I liked his voice. His lips formed around the words just perfectly.

"What makes you think that?" I asked, humming innocently.

"Because you could sit anywhere else at this table, but choose to sit with a first-year instead," he said.

"Ah, so I could," I said, "but that would be rather boring."

He held my gaze levelly, something even most seniors wouldn't do with me; I was a Quidditch star after all. For some reason, though, I never wanted him to look away again.

"So I repeat: what do you want from me?" He punctuated each word carefully.

"Nothing," I assured and, after a moment's thought, added, "Norihito."

He stiffened up immediately. I just smiled sweetly and nibbled on my toast. The glare he sent me only made my game more interesting.

"Minamisawa!"

I flinched and glared at the source of interruption. Tsukishima, one of my roommates and, I suppose, friends, walked over to us and sat next to me. He curiously looked between me and Norihito.

"Did I interrupt anything?" he asked. I simply glowered at him.

"No, you didn't," said Norihito and got up.

"Don't you want to wait for owl post?" I asked, hoping to stall him a little longer.

He gave me an odd look. "No. I don't think I'll be receiving any."

I raised my eyebrows curiously at him, but he ignored me—the audacity!—and hurried off. Tsukishima seemed thoroughly confused as he glanced between me and Norihito's retreating back.

"What was that all about?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I think I've found a new game to cure my boredom."

And curing my boredom it did. My game was more or less pestering him whenever the chance arose, and I made sure to seek him out wherever he went. Nowhere was he safe from me. I followed him to breakfast, lunch, dinner, the library, the Slytherin common room, and I even waited for him on his bed once. I learned the hard way that Norihito Kurama had an excellent throwing arm.

I also learned a lot from stalking him. He ate his breakfast as early as possible; he didn't have any animals; he didn't receive mail often or just not at all; his seemingly only friends were two Hufflepuffs; and even after the first week of school he was already on Professor Sakuma's list of top Potion students. Oh, and also, he was Muggle-born. I accidentally got that out of him while I was asking totally legitimate questions about everything and nothing. I had actually found it very cute he'd gone to such length to not tell anyone. Or well, as he had put it "no one had asked him before". Made me feel somewhat special that I was the only one knowing such things.

Before I truly noticed I was in my Potion-free sixth year. When Professor Sakuma and I had passed one another in the hallway after the Potions O.W.L. the previous year he had stopped me and asked whether I intended to continue on N.E.W.T. level. Obviously, I told him "No way in hell". I had never seen any professor as relieved as he was. He actually thanked me and walked off again, muttering something about finally being able to lift the protecting charms around my particular table.

After so many years of hanging out with Norihito and discovering all his little quirks and habits, it was strange to imagine my time without him. Summer holidays had become quite the bore seeing as Norihito refused to give me his address and forbade me to send my owl towards him since his family would have a heart attack.

I had also figured out why I was so… addicted to Norihito Kurama. My game had somehow gotten slightly more complicated then.

I fancied him.

Oh yes, I did. It should be considered a great honour to be fancied by me, really. Not that it really hit me until one day during the summer holidays. I was lying on my bed, wondering what Norihito would be doing this summer and whether he was as much of a grouch at home as he was at school, and it kind of hit me like a train—well actually, we live near a railroad and a train just happened to rumble past—and I just stared at my ceiling for the remainder of the day, not even bothering to come down for dinner.

A Sadly, with the realization of me fancying him also came the unnecessary daydreaming. Well, I didn't mind it at all, but concentrating on being a normal son who happened to be sorted in Slytherin and not Gryffindor became slightly harder that summer.

So when sixth year started and I found Norihito all alone in a compartment on the train, I obviously joined him. For some reason, he was somewhat less grouchy than usual.

We actually had a normal chat for a change, seeing as it was generally me asking any question that popped up in my mind. Too bad I had bothersome prefect things to do, so I eventually had to leave him. When I was finally released, Norihito had changed into his robes and fallen asleep, a book on his lap and his face smushed against the window.

I smiled softly and considered waking him, but he looked too cute to disturb. Even my relatively cold heart couldn't allow that. So I let him sleep and contended myself with watching him doze until we reached the station and I was forced to wake him. It went straight through my heart too, blinking blearily and slowly glancing around to regain memory of where he was.

Yet once normal schooldays started again, I continued with my little game of pestering Norihito. Except, I changed the rules a bit. Instead of just pestering him for my amusement, I was now sort of pestering him to deal with my feeling for him. Plus I was maybe kind of hoping he might start liking me back if I teased him long enough. My game had more or less changed into a gamble to obtain his heart, to say it in the cheesiest way.

It actually seemed to work too because one particular Friday would be the best Friday of all my school years.

"Would you stop that?" Norihito asked me, exasperated, as I was tapping my book out of boredom. We were seated in the library and I was already bored out of my mind.

I decided to let him know that much too.

"Then go somewhere else, but stop bothering me," he said, glaring at me from across his Potions essay.

"Don't wanna," I whined and stretched out.

"You know," he said, placing his quill down with more force than necessary, "some people actually have to work to get good grades."

"Those poor, poor people."

"And," he continued, "those people often need silence to concentrate."

"Those boringly boring people."

"AND THEY DON'T NEED ANNOYINGLY HANDSOME SENIORS!"

We stood outside of the library. Norihito was flustered and seething—a very interesting combination—while I was laughing loudly.

"This is NOT funny!" he shouted at me.

"I think it's pretty damn funny," I choked out.

"Shut up!" he yelled and stormed off.

Like hell I would let him off just like that.

"Norihito," I called as I hurried after him.

"…"

"Norihito."

"…"

"Nori—shit!"

I was staring dryly at my leg stuck in one of the steps of the stairs. In my hurry to get to Norihito I'd completely forgotten about the vanishing steps. I let out some groan mingled with a sigh and tried to pull my leg out in vain.

"Idiot."

I looked up, actually startled to find Norihito in such a close proximity as he was. He was frowning at my leg as his hands were on my shoulders to keep me upright. I swallowed as his eyes met mine. By Merlin, I've never felt as nervous as I did then. The guy can really count himself luck—

He was kissing me.

He was kissing me.

Norihito was kissing me very passionately while my leg was stuck in a vanishing step on the stairs leading up to the third floor.

We broke apart and he eventually pulled me out of my situation after he went through a rather embarrassed and stuttered apology, which I disregarded immediately by pulling him into a kiss again.

As we finally walked away and into an empty classroom we were sure wouldn't be occupied for at least another hour, I felt strangely accomplished. It was odd. It kind of meant that I had actually put effort into something.

Heh, who would've thought.

I sat down on a desk while he glanced warily around the room.

"Seems like we're a couple now," I said quietly. I grinned when our eyes met, but he just rolled his at me.

"I suppose so," he said as he leant against the desk opposite of me. "It's what you wanted from the start, right?"

"What?" I cocked my head at him.

He gave me some sort of mix of an affronted and embarrassed expression.

"When you sat opposite of me during breakfast, the day after the Sorting Ceremony. This is what you planned from the beginning?" he explained.

I blinked and scratched my cheek. "Not really, actually. I was just very interested in you and, as you know, almost nothing interests me. I just sort of wanted to pester you to feel slightly less bored, but I kind of got addicted to it all… I think a switch went on somewhere along the line and one day during summer I just thought 'oh, shit. I fancy him'. That's it, really."

Norihito just stared at me before punching my arm. Hard. "You freaking idiot! What kind of confession is that?"

I clutched my arm and sniffed. "Well, I'm sorry. I'll make sure to do better from now on then."

Norihito turned red all the way up to his ears, sputtering something until he just gave up with a sigh and a shake of his head. He bit his lip, as he often did when he was thinking over something real hard.

"Really now?" he settled on, his eyes glinting mischievously.

I smiled and slipped off the table, happily taking on Norihito's challenge. Grabbing his hand and pulling him close, I leant down.

"I love you, Norihito," I muttered, delighted in the small gasp the words evoked.

"I love you too, Atsushi," he breathed.

Good god, just reading old things makes me see how much I have improved. This fic, definitely not one I'm particularly proud of, but that is really because I cannot be bothered to rewrite it completely, nor do I feel any need to.

Now that that's over with I'm going to focus on what I actually want to write for Inavember.

Hope someone enjoyed and have a nice day! Buh-bye!