Agh. Random "let me upload this before I can hate it and take it down" sorta fic. I only went over it once or twice, so yeah, I suck if I make any more mistakes. =.= This is very much implied Kiyo/Suzu, so if you don't like, scram.

Also, I mention the classmates. If you didn't already know from my last fic, Nakamura Mariko is Suzume's female friend, the baseball guy is Yamanaka Hiroshi, alien guy Iwashima something or other and the ex-bully is Kaneyama. I also mentioned Kaneko, who is Kiyomarou's supposed rival in school (the second smartest guy) and Nakata-sensei, the nice old teacher who brings his wife to class.

There's very little mention of Gash and you know, the story line. Yeah...

So yeah, enjoy this crap.

"Sha la la Hikari no Purizumu! Kira kira kagayaku…"

Kiyomarou turned his head towards the living room where the television was currently playing. He was eating his morning breakfast while Gash was already done and had gone to watch early reruns of Kamakiri Joe. He recognized the song that was playing until a voice over started talking over it and then he realized it was a commercial.

"Hi! Ooumi Megumi here! I want to thank all my adoring fans for listening to my songs, so here's a treat."

It's hard to believe that Megumi-san has anytime for her singing career with this mamono fight going on, Kiyomarou thought as he took a bite of some pickled radish.

"Since I know you guys are always listening to me sing, I want to hear you guys for once!"

After the whole Zophis and the Thousand Year Mamono ordeal, Kiyomarou has been taking it a bit easy. Of course, there are some occasional challenges made towards Gash about the fight to be Mamono King. None of them were much of a challenge compared to the mamono sealed away for thousands of years.

"Make your own song, with music and lyrics and send them in! I'll be listening!"

Kiyomarou chuckled light when he faintly heard Gash "ooo" at the television. The lightning mamono has been through some tough situations, but he's still a kid, regardless of him being a demon.

"Also, I'll be choosing my favorite song out of all the entries. The one I like best will be getting two free tickets to my next concert!"

He drank the last of his soup and thanked his mother for the meal. Picking up his school coat, Kiyomarou ran to get his shoes before Gash would notice that he's gone. Silently closing the door behind him, he noticed the familiar classmate and friend greeting the pigmy pony mamono.

"Good morning Mizuno."

Suzume noticed that the Takamine boy had appeared and she put on her brightest smile.

"Good morning Takamine-kun!"

"So, did you review for the math exam today?"

"…What?! There's a math exam today?!"

Kiyomarou looked over at the panic stricken girl. He sighed. Typical Mizuno, even though they had a study session two nights ago she had already forgotten what they were studying for. Sometimes he wonders how she gets along in life so empty headed.

"Uwah… I totally forgot about it… There's going to be binomials in it, right?"

"Yes Mizuno. We went over this two nights ago."

"Ah, you're right. I'm sorry Takamine-kun, you probably think I didn't take your teachings into consideration. But that's not true! I always try to remember what you teach me."

Kiyomarou smiled. Well, there's that thing in Mizuno you have to give her credit for, at least she tries.

"We'll go over a few more problems in homeroom if you're still having trouble, okay?"

"Okay! Thank you Takamine-kun!"

Again, she gave him one of those bright smiles that can only come from Mizuno Suzume.

Instead of the usual chatter and talk about the upcoming exam, it seemed like the classroom was in a fit of excitement about something else. Walking to his desk, Kiyomarou was sure he heard some Do-Re-Mi's and something that sounded like a voice warm up. Also, he saw that his classmate/ex-bully/now friend Kaneyama had brought in a bright red electric guitar and was "jamming" it out on his desk. Mariko and several other girls were singing at high pitched voice that sounded too out of harmony to be angelic.

"What's… going on here?"

Iwashima, the crazy alien obsessed classmate twirled over to Kiyomarou.

"You don't know a thing do you Takamine? And I thought you were a genius."

Kiyomarou was sure he felt a vein pop. "So what the heck is going on?"

"Only the most important thing to hit Japan of course! Megumi-chan's new contest!"

Kiyomarou's other classmate, Yamanaka made his way past several rapping students. He had some music sheets in one hand and a musical triangle in the other.

"Winner of this contest gets free tickets to her next concert, which is always a big deal!"

The Takamine boy rolled his eyes. "Must I remind you that we have a math exam that we should be worrying about?"

"Non-sense Takamine!" Yamanaka had thrown an arm over Kiyomarou's shoulder, much to his dismay. "You have math tests all the time, but Megumi's contest is once in a life time!"

"That's… not the point here…" Kiyomarou muttered but it seemed to have gone misheard.

Only when the bell rang and Nakata-sensei walked in with a stack of papers reminding the class about their exams did the room quiet down.

The exam wasn't too difficult for some one of Kiyomarou's caliber, he was done by the first ten minutes and waited patiently for the others to finish. He surveyed the room and it seemed like the majority of the class had no idea what was going on with all the sweating, head scratching and pencil biting going on. Even Kaneko was scratching out multiple things with his pencil and scrawling all over the scrap paper.

Exam time ended and the entire classroom was spared from agony. That is, until after lunchtime when the teacher finished grading the exams.

As soon as the bell for lunch time rang, the whole room sprang to life and every student brought out their musical instruments and song sheets from their desks. Kiyomarou sighed. Only in Mochinoki middle school, he thought, never a dull moment.

Kiyomarou took out the nice lunch box his mother had prepared for him and was about to eat it when someone, he wasn't sure who, thought it was an amazing idea to blow a trombone right next to his ear. Deciding not to get anymore deaf, the genius grabbed his lunch and made his way towards the stairs to the rooftop, where he would hopefully be alone in peace.

He was pretty sure no one else would be on the roof. It was strange though, because the door to the roof top was ajar and he swore he heard a voice on the other side. Kiyomarou stuck his head slightly out the other end to get a peek of who the voice belonged to.

"Kimi no egao ga daisuki dakara…"

Much to his surprise, he saw Mizuno standing in the center of the roof with a few sheets of paper in her hand. She scribbled something out and muttered something to herself.

"Yasashii kimi ga daisuki dakara… Yes, that sounds better for the second verse!"

The girl continued to vocalize a few more lyrics, taking her time to correct a few words. Kiyomarou realized she must have been working on a song for Megumi's concert too. Listening to Suzume, he noticed her voice was trained pretty well for singing.

Oh right, he thought, she's supposed to be part of the Mochinoki choir group. Kiyomarou stood by the door for a while, just to observe how the girl worked. The thing I like best about her, the boy smiled, she's definitely dedicated.

"Hm, this still needs some work, and I have to do something about the instruments, but I'll definitely do it! Ganbare Suzume! You will impress Megumi-chan and get tickets to see her concert with Takamine-kun!"

At the mention of his name, Kiyomarou's stature faultered but he regained his composure quickly. He shouldn't be surprised that she would want to go with him, right? He'd gone to Megumi's concert with her the last time, he was sure she should save that ticket for closer friends. She has other friends, like Nakamura, the boy thought, why not take her?

Suzume was still giving herself a pep talk and cheering herself on.

Then the thought hit Kiyomarou. Does she consider me her closest friend? He heart beat a little too quickly all of a sudden and he wasn't sure why. Too busy contemplating this enigmatic feeling, Kiyomarou didn't see Suzume walk towards the door he was secretly watching her from.

"Ah!"

The girl had collided into the boy and fell backwards, landing on her behind. Her music notes were scattered all over the floor.

"Ow…"

"Sorry Mizuno. Here let me get that."

Suzume recognized the voice and glanced up to see that it was indeed the Takamine boy that she admired. She swallowed hard when she saw him pick up several of her sheet music. Almost franticly, she gathered the rest of her notes and thanked him for helping her.

"Ah, what are you doing up here Takamine-kun?"

"I was going to eat lunch here, since it's incredibly noisy downstairs. You wanna join me?"

He swore he saw Mizuno's eyes sparkle at his request. She nodded vigorously.

"Un! Let me get my lunch, I'll be right back!"

She sprinted down the stairs, nearly tripping down the last few steps as she disappeared from his view.

Kiyomarou spotted one more piece of paper he assumed was part of Mizuno's collection. There were various scribbles and messy footnotes written on the music sheet. On the bottom corner of the paper he saw a little note, probably to herself.

"With this, he will finally notice me."

…What? What is this crap? D| This crap is one of the fics that I wanted to badly to write down a long time ago when I was in my Gash Bell obsession.

The point of this story is to point out some of Suzume's redeeming qualities. Hey, just because Kiyomarou has idols for friends, doesn't mean Suzume can't compete. I thought it was kind of cool that she was part of the choir, which must mean she's good at singing, right? Not that we ever really hear her sing other than in episode 124 with Mariko, but it wasn't much. She does have her own song, and a duet with Kiyomarou. (Which I ADORE to PIECE by the way.) She's also really dedicated to whatever she's doing. I mean, when she got lost in the hospital, she still tried. And she's a nice person, you have to give her that.

All the lyrics were taken from actual character songs. Megumi's Hikari no Prism and Suzume's Heart no Compass. The lines that I took from Heart no Compass translates to something like "I like your smile so… blah blah blah" and "I like your kindness so… blah blah blah." At least, that's what I think it meant. Rough translation is rough.

I also tried to hint some feelings from Kiyomarou's side, even though he's still a little clueless. What a genius. I was actually going to add more and end this differently but then I realized that what I was going to do actually happened in the anime at some point, as a small filler. (Some scene where Kiyomaro gives Suzume a ticket to a concert. Apparently it happened after the Wonrei and Liyen ordeal, and it was hinting at happy couples. Even Gash said so. XP) It was a nice lil KiyoSuzu moment filler, but, you know.

Yeah, tell me how my driving is, because I definitely hate this right now. =.=