The Tutoring Quandary

Ryoma wouldn't admit it. He simply wouldn't. He wasn't having troubles with angles – absolutely not. The boy flicked through the pages of his textbook with great annoyance. He didn't understand how lines protruding out of other lines was supposed to be mathematics. In his mind, angles were an excuse to teach art in math class.

The angles did kind of look like abstract art.

The lithe figure leaned back and tapped his pencil irritably against the table. He wasn't used to actually studying and focusing in class. Math, while not his favourite or best subject, was fairly easy to grasp and he managed to ace the tests without even taking a peek at the textbook. Then, the teacher introduced the horrid new unit: Angles.

"A C Pattern?" Ryoma's brows furrowed. "That's not even a C…it's…it's…half a rectangle or something."

Ryoma groaned and pushed his notebook closed. He couldn't flunk his test tomorrow. While his father might not care, his mother would probably punish him with something like 'No Tennis for a week'. The last time she had done that, he had almost had a mental breakdown, and had refrained to going as low as playing tennis on the Wii console. He shuddered at the thought.

Must. Not. Flunk. Test.

The boy's eyes lazily scoped the room. Most people were hunched over their desks working away, pencils scribbling in swift strokes. Even Sakuno, who usually struggled with the subject match, seemed to be answering in ease. He was surprised that everyone seemed to find angles easy – he didn't understand how anyone could understand them, anyway. He was smarter than everyone here. So why… he wanted to snap his pencil. …is this so hard?

"Ah, Echizen, you're still on that question?" Horio exclaimed loudly. Ryoma didn't even know how the annoying boy had seen his notebook. "Even I, who sucks at math most of the time, am on the last section. You do know we have a test tomorrow, eh Echizen?"

Ryoma pulled his notebook closer to his chest to hide it from Horio. "I was sleeping."

Horio sighed and shook his head brusquely. "Of course. That's just like you Echizen."

He was about to return to his seat when Horio's vision caught sight of something that made his face light up with delight. Swiftly, the loud-mouth grabbed Ryoma's notebook and promptly burst into ear-wrecking laughter. It caught the attention of their classmates and they all peered at what was so funny.

"Bwahahahaha!" Horio guffawed, clutching his stomach. Ryoma simply blinked in confusion.

"This-" Horio sputtered, pointing to an open page in Ryoma's notebook. He gasped for air. "You're bad at angles? You – you're actually bad at something?"

Ryoma wondered how the hell Horio had figured out he was bad at angles. He knew he only had two questions on his paper, but he was pretty sure, after a good twenty minutes of figuring them out, that they were correct. So how had he figured out-

"Echizen, I can't believe you would draw little angry faces around the page." Horio looked like he was about to give birth. "And, oh, look, there's a sad face too! A crying face…- Oh-ho, this is just too funny."

Ryoma ducked his head. His face was going warm, he could feel it. In the process of trying to finish a few questions, he had unconsciously let out his frustration by drawing little expressions around the page. In his defense, he hadn't expected his book to be mercilessly torn from his hands and into the evil clutches of Horio.

A few people in his class murmured while others laughed heartily along with Horio. Most of the girls cooed at how cute Ryoma was for being bad at angles. Honestly, Ryoma didn't care what they thought. He wanted his notebook back, Horio to shut up, and a sudden magic power that made him a genius at angles.

Once Horio was done his fit of laughter, he carelessly threw the book back onto Ryoma's desk. The Seigaku freshman glared at Horio's retreating back before hugging his notebook to his chest. Nobody – nobody would touch his notebook from now on. With a sigh, Ryoma flipped his notebook open to his current page and tried to tackle the next question.

The whole thing was stupid, really. How was a square a rhombus? If a square was a rhombus, they should have just named it a rhombus in the first place!

He was so busy nitpicking all the downsides of learning angles and ranting in his mind about why angles didn't matter in the first place that he didn't notice a shy figure slink up to his desk.

"Um…Ryoma-kun?"

Ryoma tiredly looked up from his book. He was surprised to see Ryuuzaki Sakuno standing in front of him with her books in her arms and a nervous smile on her face. This was definitely out of the ordinary – Sakuno didn't really talk to Ryoma during class unless Tomoka dragged her with up to his desk. But Tomoka was away today and here Sakuno was, biting her lip and fiddling with her braids.

"Ryuuzaki-san?" Ryoma questioned.

"I thought you might – um, well, Horio said you were having a hard time with, um, angles so…" Sakuno chewed on her lower lip, not noticing Ryoma's darkened expression. "And, well, surprisingly, I'm particularly g-good at angles so I thought…"

Ryoma stared at her. "Can you get to the point?"

Sakuno widened her eyes. "O-of course! I'm so sorry! I – I …" her lips quivered and she tried not to cry. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea in the first place. "I thought if you wanted some help today…I could explain a bit…so you'll…do okay on the test…"

By the time she was done, Ryoma noticed Sakuno was near tears. He silently cursed. He hated that Sakuno always had to look on the verge of crying. It made him feel guilty even though he knew he didn't really do anything that wrong. That was just his way of speaking.

However, the offer was quite tempting.

He really needed help on angles, and honestly, out of everyone in his class, Sakuno was probably the best person to tutor him. Tutor… Ryoma thought bitterly. I can't believeI need to get tutored in math by clumsy Ryuuzaki-san of all people…it's just not right, not right at all - argh, now I'm sounding like Momo-senpai!

"Ryoma-kun?" Sakuno asked again.

Ryoma abruptly broke out of his reverie. "Sure. Just pull up a chair."

Sakuno blinked. "Huh?"

"I said pull up a chair." Ryoma tried to sound bored. Almost as an afterthought, he mumbled, "…thanks for offering to help…"

Slowly, but surely, a wide smile spread across Sakuno's face and a delicate laugh spilled from her lips. She sounded so surprised that Ryoma had actually accepted her help, and quickly hurried off to grab her chair. A moment later, with a lot of squeaking and pulling, she managed to pull her chair from the other side of the room to Ryoma's desk.

Ryoma raised an eyebrow incredulously. "You know, there was a chair right there…" he pointed offhandedly to the chair discarded near his desk. "Nobody was using it…"

Sakuno turned red. "Oh – whoops. I g-guess I brought my chair all the way here for no reason…"

"Guess so."

"Hm…yeah…"

Ryoma bore his gold eyes into her brown ones. Honestly, the girl had the jitters for no reason. She was the formula for awkwardness. The recipe of long silences. He didn't know why she simply stood there with a scared expression on her face instead of just sitting down and starting to explain. When she didn't move, he sighed and waved his hand.

"Aren't you going to sit down?"

Startled, Sakuno nodded and hurriedly slipped into the chair. Her thumbs twiddled with each other and Ryoma found himself entranced at the habit.

"Okay, so…" Sakuno's eyes scanned his workbook. "What exactly are you having trouble with?"

And with that, Ryoma began to explain the illogic of C Patterns that looked like rectangles sliced in half.

The next day, Ryoma sat in Math Class promptly with his pencil and eraser out on his desk. He had his lazy smirk adorned on his face. He was going to ace the test – he just knew he was. It was a good thing Sakuno offered to help, he thought. She really drilled all that stuff in my head. Tch, I can't believe I didn't understand angles before this.

It was true. Sakuno had a great, patient method of teaching, and Ryoma quickly got the hang of learning angles. He also realized that the girl was not half as dumb as she looked and actually could manage complete sentences without stuttering. It had been a little surprising to see her so confidently talking about angles in comparison to her normally shy sentences.

It's nice to see her so confident sometimes…Ryoma thought.

He didn't know why Sakuno had to act so insecure around him. She was fairly smart, nice, admittedly pretty – long legs, beautiful brown eyes, and long glossy hai- Wait…what am I saying? Ryoma closed his eyes and told his mind to shut up. It was weird, but ever since that tutoring session, a good news and bad news had popped up:

Good news: He understood angles. He would pass the test. He wouldn't be banned from tennis.

Bad News: He kind of, sorta, started to daydream about Sakuno.

He told himself it wasn't his fault. He was just having one of those off moments. Through the rest of class and that following night, he couldn't do anything but think about the way her eyes would light up when he got a question right, or the way her cheeks would glow with modesty when he offered a compliment. Not to mention, her voice was so soothing as she explained: "The C Pattern is not there to try to take over the half-rectangles…"

Ryoma groaned. He was at it again.

Suddenly, his eyes caught sight of Sakuno entering through the doorway. Her face had a bright smile and her slender thighs brushed against each other as she strolled towards her seat. Ryoma stopped reviewing his notes and took a moment to stare. She really was pretty. He didn't know how he hadn't realized it before.

And she had a nice smile too. He had noticed it yesterday when she had gently explained that, "Angles aren't there to torture your mind and rip your brain into pieces…"

Ryoma found himself absorbed in another daydream and nearly missed his teacher handing the test onto his desk. Once again, he shook his head and started to get to work.

After completing the first question, Ryoma found himself distracted by the way the sunlight reflected off of Sakuno's eyelashes and the motion of her pencil swiftly sliding across her paper. He couldn't help it. Nor could he help the fact that his stomach twisted in knots whenever she let a small smile grace her beautiful, plush lips and- Ryoma stopped himself from thinking further. What was wrong with him?

It was Momoshiro's fault. It had to be. When all else fails, blame Momo-senpai!

The rest of the test when similarly. Ryoma managed to complete a few questions but he was too absorbed in daydreaming and admiring Sakuno. He kept telling himself it wasn't his fault. Sakuno had turned beautiful overnight and it was hard to take it all in at once without staring. And, of course, he continuously blamed Momoshiro in his head. He was so entranced by every little thing she did that when she stood up and walked over to the teacher's desk, his breath nearly caught. She was flawless – really, she was. Most people would laugh because the girl had nearly tripped twice on the way up, but all Ryoma could think was: flawless, perfect, graceful.

Then, he realized she was handing her test in. And a lot of other people were too.

Huh? It couldn't possibly be-

His eyes flew to the clock.

Two minutes until the bell rang. He wasn't even half way done the test.

Shit.

He really wanted to snap a pencil this time.

Shitshitshitshitshit.

It turned out, even after all her help, he had failed the test either way. Stupid Sakuno and her newfound beauty. Stupid angles. Stupid C Pattern.

Arggh, this is all Momo-senpai's fault!

He took a deep breath and tried not to panic. At least, he told himself. I learned something new.

Sakuno is a liar.

After all, she had promised that with all her help and his fast grasping skills, he would definitely pass the test with ease. Who would have known she would have been the reason he failed?

Another RyoSaku. I think I'm warming up to them. Slowly…slowly warming up to them as a couple…THE ENDING – I'm sorry. I didn't know how to end it, wanted to finish it, and well, this is what happened…so sorry about the ending…

Anyway, I'm still all for boy x boy, don't worry guys…I've just been on a major blockage for…um everything. And for some reason, whenever I'm on a writers block, I can write RyoSaku…oh well. O.o