Title: A Man of Conviction
Universe: Nobuta wo Produce
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG
Character/Pairing/s: vaguely, lightly AkiraxShuuji
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for the end of the series like WOAH. Also, OOC times a billion.
Word Count: 1,989
Time: Like, off and on for the last 6 hours. ARGH.
Summary: Akira on the maximization of enjoying his youth in this crucial and ephemeral time called high school.
Dedication: Ann- Late b-day fic, but I guess that's just my MO this year. Sorry!
A/N: I don't remember the characters' full names. Or even the name of Shuuji's sort-of girlfriend. I remember nothing. Except that Akira's kind of a spaz. And that the guys are kind of gay. And Shuuji's kind of a d-bag sometimes. That's about it.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Distribution: Just lemme know.

---

Akira knew Shuuji was resolute in not misleading anymore girls now that he had a clean slate to work with at their new school, but he really thought the guy could be a little bit too high strung about the issue as a whole overall. There was a nice balance one should shoot for when it came to these types of things, after all.

Who said no to fried shrimp and meatball lunches when a girl was offering them as a gesture of pure friendship? It wasn't like they could genuinely be interested in him after having had nothing but a week of the guy sitting towards the back of the class and always hanging out with Akira after school was out anyway.

"It's like… ooh, it's like when the neighbors bring you soba! Except less old fashioned and formal. Cuter neighbors. In mini skirts," Akira sing-songed on the school roof one afternoon, index fingers poised skyward and swinging back and forth like he was trying to hypnotize Shuuji into believing him with them. "Meatballs! Mini skirts! Shu-u-ji-ku-n!"

"You eat them then," Shuuji told the other boy, and reached out to grab both index fingers turned pendulums before they drove him crazy.

Akira grinned and dodged, changed the motion from a side-to-side one to a wagging one instead. "Ah ah ah," he chastised, "not until the hypnosis works!"

"You never get normal, do you?"

At that, Akira clutched his heart and veered sideways shouting, "Shot! I'm shot! Help!! It went through! This is a new uniform!"

Shuuji rolled his eyes. "I'm just saying. No more giving girls the wrong idea."

Akira straightened then, and for a second, looked very, very serious. But then his hand came up. And he started talking through it. "Maaa, but what if you end up genuinely liking one of those girls, Shuuuuuuuuji-kun?" the faux hand-puppet asked in a high pitched voice. "Love-kon!"

Shuuji sighed. "Then it'll happen, right?" He swatted absently at the puppet hand, but Akira used the fingers that constituted whatever creature it was in his head's "mouth" to grab the other boy's wrist instead.

"Will you even know when it happens if you like her?" Akira asked, normal voiced and all. He grinned, pointed with his free hand. "You don't talk to them, don't eat with them… you wouldn't know what to do with a girl you liked! I'll bet you haven't even had your first kiss yet, have you?"

"First kiss!" he echoed, via the hand-puppet.

Shuuji blinked. Sputtered. "Oi… where the heck did you get that crazy idea?"

Akira grinned and pointed to his head. "Psychic. Denpa-waves!"

"Obvious!" the hand-puppet filled in, helpfully.

Shuuji scowled, but didn't move to correct his friend on the matter, which only led Akira to believe…

"Ahahaha I can't believe I was actually right!" He clutched his stomach laughing, and even dissolved his little hand-puppet sidekick so he could point at Shuuji for emphasis while he guffawed openly at his friend's bad luck. "You're going to be the only high school graduate in history who hasn't even had his first kiss!"

"Oi…shut up! I'm telling you… that sort of thing's not important."

"It's totally important!"

"I'm not going to kiss a girl I don't even like for the sake of some stupid high school memory. I've learned my lesson."

"Very dramatic," Akira agreed. And then giggled.

Shuuji rolled his eyes. "All I'm saying is… I don't feel the need for all that stuff anymore. I'm a new man," he stated, and nodded resolutely.

"A new man!" Akira shouted, over the edge of the rooftop, his arms held out as far as they could go on either side of him. "You have to do it with conviction! Conviction! Woooo!!" he explained, and flapped his arms. "The arms, it's in the arms."

Shuuji sighed and held his arms up—limply. "Conviction. Woo," he said, and hoped that was enough to shut his friend up.

Akira however, was painfully unsatisfied, if the way he put his hands on his hips was any indication. "No conviction at all," he chastised, and took a very, very (unnecessarily) deep breath. "It's in the arms!!!" he shouted, again.

Shuuji eyed him. "Have you even had your first kiss already?"

His friend looked vaguely offended. "Of course!"

"Of course?"

"Of course!" Akira held up his hand again, in the form of the puppet creature. He pointed to it.

Shuuji wrinkled his nose. "Your hand?"

"It counts! I saw it on a movie once. Valid practice."

"Gross."

"Experience, I got experience… that's what matters."

"Mmm hmm."

"I'm a really good kisser now!"

Shuuji held both hands up in mock surrender. "Whatever you say, man."

Akira pointed again, like emphasis on the fact that he made out with his hand every now and again validated his point. "I am."

The hand came up again. "He is!"

"Whatever you say," Shuuji assured him, and eyed the hand warily. He shook that hand sometimes. That had patted him on the back a lot. Eeuw.

Akira however, looked very serious about the whole thing. "You don't believe me."

Even the hand looked kind of serious—oddly enough.

"You don't believe him," "it" said, solemnly.

Shuuji stared. Akira stared. The hand stared.

Shuuji sighed. "I don't believe you," he admitted after a beat, in all honesty.

Akira lowered the hand. Shuuji hoped the idiot's feelings weren't hurt or anything, but seriously, how could he expect to be an expert kisser based on some weird movies (probably European) and what might have been some very disturbing quality time with his hand puppet in front of a mirror? The image made Shuuji shudder a bit instinctively, and after a moment he realized that Akira was being oddly silent, which probably meant he was offended or something. Resigned, Shuuji he took a deep breath, looked his friend in the eye and prepared to…

…kiss him.

Except he didn't do anything of the sort so he could only assume that Akira was the one doing the kissing and what the hell? He'd been planning on just apologizing. Sort of.

Admittedly the kiss itself wasn't anything big—just a touch, linger one, two, three and then gone—but it was still the sort of thing (in any shape or form) that instinctively made any sane person immediately freeze in his tracks. Or, as Shuuji could only think at the time, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell?!

Akira pulled back an inch or two after the moment was up, looking irritatingly unperturbed and even extremely self-satisfied at the whole thing. Shuuji just stared—stunned.

"See?" Akira declared after taking in his friend's reaction. He pointed at the gaping boy winningly, even though they were still only a breath apart. "I'm good, right? It's 'cuz I've got convictions. No half-assing! Practice!" he monologued, and didn't pause to let Shuuji get a word in.

Just as well-- Shuuji wouldn't have been able to say anything anyway, the state he was in.

The only thing that could prompt him to move in fact, was the sound of something being dropped. Which happened right at that very moment— the clash and clatter of suddenly falling objects accompanied by a quiet gasp aiding the stunned high school student in regaining his otherwise befuddled faculties.

Both boys immediately turned to look behind them (in synchronization one might add) at the din. Their cheeks hit against one another when they did.

And there in the middle of it all, gaping and trembling in the doorway, stood one of their new classmates—Kusunoki-san— a dropped and spilled over bento at her feet.

"Ah… s-sorry!" she gasped when they looked at her, and quickly bent to gather up her fallen lunchboxes, painstakingly avoiding eye-contact with either boy. "I didn't know I was interrupting!!!"

Akira looked down. "Eh, shrimp!" he exclaimed.

Apparently, he didn't grasp the severity of the situation (but then again, he rarely did).

"Ah, Kusunoki-san it's not what you think!" Shuuji rushed to assure her, but she only grasped armfuls of bento containers and bowed again in apology to them.

"Don't worry, I won't say anything!" she promised quickly. And then she was uttering a nervous "have a nice day!" before whirling around and beating it back down the staircase into the school like the hounds of hell themselves were baying at her feet.

"Wait!" Shuuji called after her, hopelessly.

"What a waste!" Akira mourned, and moved to crouch down by the fallen shrimp. He poked at it a couple of times with one finger.

"You dumbass!" Shuuji shouted, and was bright pink with embarrassment. "Now she's going to think…and then everyone's going to think… why did you do that?"

Akira looked up from the shrimp then, pursing his lips and thoughtfully tapping his index finger (the one he'd poked the wasted food with) against his chin. It left a small, shiny grease spot in its wake. "It was good practice?" he offered after a moment, and then licked his finger experimentally. "Wow, it's good! She's really good! Amazingly good!"

Shuuji slapped a hand to his forehead. "I don't believe this."

Akira stood then, dusted the backs of his pants off with his palms heartily before slinging an arm around his friend like nothing at all had just happened. "Well look at it this way! The girls will stop bugging you now. And you won't have to mislead any of them! Brilliant. I'm brilliant. And a great kisser."

"I don't believe this," Shuuji whined again, as Akira continued to congratulate himself on a job well done. "Everyone's going to think we're…"

Akira grinned and poked his more serious friend in the cheek. "I thought we learned that it didn't matter what anyone else thought. Ne? Nenenene?"

"Well, that's true… but still." Shuuji sighed. "Right."

"Good!" Akira declared, and stood a little bit taller. "As long as we've got each other, right?"

"Right…"

"And we'll call Nobuta tonight!"

"Right…wait…why?"

"To tell her!"

"To tell her what?"

"That I stole your first kiss!!" Akira gleed, and patted Shuuji's back heartily. "What a great experience for you!"

"Oi… don't tell her that sort of thing!!"

"Why not?"

"Because I said so!" Shuuji responded heatedly, and swiped at his friend.

Akira laughed and dodged the blow, doing a wide half-arc across the rooftop with his arms trailing out behind him like wings. "NOBUTAAAAAAAAAA!!!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, "CAN YOU HEAR MEEEE?! I STOLE SHUUUUJI'S FIIIIIRST KIIIIIIIIIISSSS!!!!!!"

"Oi, shut up, stupid! The whole school can hear you!!" Shuuji hissed under his breath, and promptly gave chase.

Akira just laughed and kept on running. "Why are you whispering?! Gotta say it with conviction, Shuu-chan, Conviction!"

Shuuji was very much convicted to killing the idiot—and showed his resolve when he finally caught him (five or ten minutes later because the bastard was a slippery one). He noogied Akira hard enough to start premature balding.

Though his friend was right in the end, Shuuji supposed—the girls really did stop asking him to lunch after that.

And maybe it had been pretty nice to hear Nobuta's quiet laughter over the phone when the called that night and Akira told her what happened—even if it was at Shuuji's own expense.

That at least, was something he had some relatively strong convictions about.

Akira promised him (and the hand puppet promised him) that they'd all work together on the rest of his convictions with time.

At that, Shuuji's first deeply convicted act of the evening was to declare that "You're not as good a kisser as you think you are, stupid."

Akira counter-declared that if that was really the case, they could always practice together.

Shuuji's second deeply convicted act that night was to punch the laughing idiot in the head.

And in retrospect of that, he supposed that he was beginning to learn that being resolute wasn't always a bad thing.

END