Opening my eyes, I found myself laying in bed immersed in totally darkness. Where was I? Normally moonlight would filter in thru the open window and give the room a slight glow, but now wasn't the case. I'm not in my dorm... so where am I? As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I remembered that Syrus had kicked Jesse and me out of the dorm because he thought that we stayed up too late. Honestly, the guy needs to grow a backbone. I mean, a bedtime of 1 am is not that ridiculous, especially on the night of a test. So Jesse and I ended up studying in his dorm room. Since the study session went till about 2, we crashed together in his bed.

That explained the unusual warmth I felt beside my tired body. Jesse had had sleepovers at my dorm before to study, but normally he sleep in the empty bunk. This was the first time we've ever "slept together". Heck! I've never even slept in the same bed as someone else before. Well, there was that one time with Bastion, but that was not intentional; we were both exhausted and just happened to pass out about the same time.

Lying in the comfortable darkness, I found myself staring at the sleeping face of my best friend across from me. He seemed so calm, so content, and so... beautiful. Even in the blackness, his features still showed stunning. His blue hair framed his face so tenderly. I couldn't take my eyes off him.

In the middle of the night, my feelings stirred up inside me, wonderful yet intensely conflicting. I knew I loved the bluenette who lay sleeping peacefully in front of me. That was something I realized a while ago. But I found myself hesitating at the one thing that held me back from expressing my feeling towards him. We were boys.

I feared that Jesse would reject me altogether if I told him how I felt towards him. I don't think I could stand losing him. I've had to deal with a lot of things, but this was something entirely different. Jesse was the one person that I didn't feel like I had to be "the hero" for; I could just be me.

I watched Jesse in silence, all the while not realizing that his arm was slowly snaking its way under my shirt and around my waist. When I felt the warm touch of his bare skin upon mine, I ripped away from my thoughts and locked my eyes to his face. As I observed him with my breath held, I realized with a sad expression that the bluenette was still asleep.

He probably doesn't even realize he's doing this.

As we layer together, Jesse mumbled my name in the darkness,

"Jaden..."

Jesse was sleep talking. By the way he sounded and the training I had listening to Syrus sleep talk embarrassing stories during the night, I could tell that Jesse was asleep. While we laid in the darkness, the sleeping bluenette pulled me closer to his warm body. Being held close to his chest, I stayed as silent as a secret. I didn't want to move; afraid that if I did Jesse would awaken and break the embrace. As I lay still, taking in the scent of his body, Jesse murmured my name again.

"Jaden..."

Taking a chance, I snuggled closer into his chest and whispered

"I'm right here, Jesse."

Suddenly Jesse's other arm, which I didn't realize until now that I was using as a pillow, began to gently stroke my hair. A smile spread across his face as he did this, but it looked like it was full if sadness. I continued to watch him quietly, but I couldn't help gasp when I heard his next words.

"I wish I could hold you like this when you were awake... Jaden."

He did?!

"You have no idea how much I've wanted to hold you... how much I want to kiss you."

His words rung in my ears long after he spoke them. He wanted to kiss me. He wanted the same things I did. I lay awestruck as Jesse continued to unknowingly reveal his feeling for me.

"I love being around you. You always make everyone around you feel special, especially me. Whenever I look at you and see your beautiful brown eyes, I swear my heart skips a beat. You're so cute, no matter what you're doing."

Jesse stopped talking for a moment, only to wrap his arms tighter around me and bring his head to rest in the nook of my neck. He then whispered lovingly into me ear,

"I wish I was brave like you. I wish I could bring myself to tell you these things when you weren't off in a dream. I wish I could tell you that..."

I held my breath as he whispered so quietly to me that I could just barely hear him.

"That I love you."

Tears of happiness started to form in my eyes. All this time I had nothing to worry about. Everything that I had felt, Jesse felt the same. As the bluenette rest his head back down onto the pillow, I couldn't help but give him a chaste kiss on the cheek. I felt a hard blush form over my face as I whispered to the sleeping boy,

"I love you too."

With that I fell back to sleep still snuggled close to Jesse in the bed.

-/-/-

As I peered my eyes open, I was greeted by a warm sunlight across my face. Normally I would have enjoyed this, but I was quickly distracted by the fact that I was alone. Where had Jesse gone? Almost as if he was in tune to my thoughts, Jesse called out from the other room,

"Hey Jaden! I'm in the kitchen finishing up some tea. Do you want any sugar?"

Sitting up in the Obelisk's bed I replied,

"Um, yeah! Can I have 10 sugar cubes?"

My question was greeted by a chuckle, one which I had easily fallen for. Poking his head around the corner, Jesse sarcastically asked,

"Would you like some tea with that sugar?"

After I made a face at the bluenette, Jesse returned to the kitchen and quickly came out with the tea. He sat down beside me, but my swirling thoughts of the night before distracted me from noticing him. It took him nearly pinching my nose to snap me back to reality. As I cleared my head I looked to Jesse and asked,

"What?"

Softly chuckling he replied,

"You spaced out."

Embarrassed, I quickly apologized to him, which he easily accepted. As we sat and drank our tea in silence, I decided to confront Jesse about the events that took place during his "talking session".

"So, uh... did you, um, dream about anything last night?"

When I looked up at the bluenette, I was greeted with a lightly blushed face. His expression seemed slightly frightened, but he quickly tried to cover it up by looking down and replying,

"Uh, none that I can really remember. Why do you ask?"

I knew he was lying. Jesse was an easy person to read, well for me at least. I felt myself hesitate as I planned out what I was to say next, but I knew that there wasn't anything to fear, so I told him what happened.

"Cause last night, you started talking in you sleep."

I felt my best friend tense up beside me at the words. Not something that I was too surprised about. By the way he was talking last night, he seemed as scared as I was of getting rejected. Jesse gulped loudly before he asked me,

"What did I say?"

Jesse's eyes remained cast at the ground as I began to speak, making it impossible to read his expression. Considering how nervous I was, it probably was for the best that I couldn't see it as I told him.

"Well, at first you just said my name but then you... wrapped your arm around me. You told me that wish that you could hold me like you were, but with me awake. You told me that I made you feel special and that when you saw me your heart skipped a beat. You also told me that you... that you wanted to kiss me."

I looked over at the quiet bluenette and found that he hadn't moved. He was scared, so scared that he had told me those things, but I had to tell him his last words.

"Finally, you told me that you love me."

Jesse began to tremble slightly. My heart stopped as I saw a single tear slip down his face.

"Jesse? Is all of that true?"

Burying his face into his hands, Jesse responded,

"I'm sorry Jaden, I'm so sorry. You weren't supposed to hear any of that. I thought you were asleep when I said that, not the other way around. I'm sorry... please don't be freaked out. I don't think I can stand losing you."

I sat quiet for a while, the tea all but forgotten. It broke my heart to see him like this. Carefully I reached my arm across the bluenette's shoulder and hug him.

"You took the words right out of my mouth."

Snapping out of his "I'm sorry" state, Jesse turning to me, face red and wet with tears, and asked,

"What did you say?"

Smiling gently at the Obelisk I answered,

"Jesse, I've liked, for a while now. I've wanted to tell you how I've felt about you, but I was scared just like you were. Last night when you wrapped your arm around my waist, I could have easily moved away from you, but I let you pull me closer. I wanted nothing more than for you to keep holding me like that. Everything that you said were things that I couldn't bring myself to say, but so badly wanted to."

The look on Jesse's face was one of shock. After a while, a smile spread across his face. Swallowing, he asked me in a shaky voice,

"Is all that true?"

As I nodded my head, he asked me another question, one the made my heart nearly jump out of my chest.

"Can I kiss you?"

I nodded again at the bluenette. Slowly, he brought himself closer towards me on the bed, pulling me in by carefully wrapping his arms around my waist. As his face neared mine, I leaned in, closing the gap between us and bringing our lips together.

It was like magic! The hot wetness of his mouth felt amazing against mine. As we kissed, Jesse moved his hand to the back of my head, deepening the kiss. Suddenly, I felt his tongue run across my mouth, asking for permission to come in and explore. I easily complied. Quickly the foreign object slipped into my mouth and ran itself tenderly about its new area, causing me to moaning in pleasure. Then, Jesse pulled out of the kiss, leaving behind a thin trail of saliva connecting us. We sat in quiet for a short while before he spoke up.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that."

With that I fell back on the bed, laughing. I felt so happy. Nothing could ruin this moment, not even...

"Hey Jesse, what time is it?"

Leaning over to look at the clock on the bed side table, Jesse eyes widened in horror.

"IT'S 9:03! WE'RE LATE FOR THE TRAPS TEST!"

As we sprinted to class, we gripped each other's hand the whole way. Just before we entered the classroom, I stopped. Jesse look back at me confused. Quickly I leaned in and gave him a good luck kiss. As I pulled back, the bluenette smiled and said,

"Let's ace this, Juu-chan!"

"Together, Jo-kun!"