One week. It had been a whole week since the incident at the mall, and the relationship between Nikolai and Fyodor still hadn't been defined.

Were they friends? Boyfriends? Friendboys? Almost something?

Sigma was getting desperate.

"How long are you going to keep this up?" he said, as a greeting, when he entered the biology classroom and sat down next to his friend. "If you're waiting for Nikolai to ask you, you'll die waiting."

"What if you do it for me? Come on, I'll pay you."

Sigma considered it for a moment but ultimately shook his head.

"Nope," he refused. "I think I've already fleeced you enough."

"Fleeced...what?"

"In any case, this time you have to do it yourself. You're the one who has to ask. And you have less than a week."

"Why?"

"Because the holidays are coming up soon! You don't know if he'll go somewhere with his family. And you haven't even asked for his number."

Sigma gave him an accusing look, and Fyodor felt embarrassed.

"He made me nervous!" he excused himself. "And I have no idea how to say it."

The other sighed.

"You just have to go and say: 'Will you be my boyfriend?' And that's it. It's not that difficult."

"But I want it to be different and unique."

"Sure, because you're so unique and one-of-a-kind..."

"Stop making fun of me!"

The bicolor-haired one laughed and gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder.

"Come on, don't get mad. We'll think of something," he smiled and stretched in his seat. Fyodor thought he looked like a cat. "Speaking of something else, my father called me."

Fyodor opened his eyes in surprise. After his date with Nikolai, he went to Sigma's house to chat for a while and sort things out better. Communication was too important, and it avoided many misunderstandings. Fyodor still couldn't believe that Shibusawa was really in love with him. He didn't understand it.

They had also talked about Sigma's situation with his father. Sigma confessed that he preferred to go with him to Ireland than stay in Japan with his mother, stepfather, and half-brother.

It was curious that right after talking about that, Sigma came and told him that his father had called him.

"Really? What did he say?" the Russian asked. Sigma shrugged.

"He asked me if I wanted to spend the holidays with him," he replied nonchalantly, with an incipient smile on his face. Fyodor was happy for him.

"That's great!"

"I know! He also said I could talk to my mother, and if I wanted, I could decide to stay with him."

He sighed and rested his head on the desk.

"I'm worried about leaving you here, without any idea of how to socialize, but I guess you'll be fine."

Dostoyevsky nudged him, and he laughed.

"I'm glad you can spend the holidays with Bram," he said, genuinely happy.

They smiled at each other, and the teacher came in to start the class, so Sigma straightened up, and they took out their notebooks.

Fyodor's mind was elsewhere at that moment, thinking about Nikolai and what he would say to ask him to be his boyfriend. After their date, they hadn't talked much. They exchanged smiles and knowing glances every time they crossed paths, and occasionally, they gave each other a peck on the cheek when they met, but that was it.

It was then that the biology teacher said:

"Penguins, like other types of birds such as doves or swans, only have one partner for life. That's why they choose carefully."

At that moment, Fyodor jumped up like a spring and ran out of the classroom without giving Sigma a chance to ask what was going on or for Mrs. Yosano to stop him.

It was probably a foolish thing that he would regret later, but right now, what mattered was the adrenaline.

The biology class was on the third floor, and he had to go down to the first floor to get to the courtyard, where Nikolai should be in physical education class. It's not like he had memorized the albino's schedule, not at all.

He was genuinely exhausted, but before passing out, he had to confess.

He felt like his heart was going to leap out of his chest, partly because of the tremendous sprint he had just done, and partly because of nerves, but he spotted Gogol in his physical education uniform in the distance, so he called out to him.

"NIKOLAI!"

The albino heard him and turned around. He smiled from ear to ear, and he might have blushed a little. He waved and greeted him back.

"HI!" he shouted.

Fyodor put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Then he stood up and shouted again:

"NIKOLAI!"

"WHAT'S UP?!"

Fyodor smiled, even as his knees gave way from exhaustion.

"WILL YOU BE MY PENGUIN?!"

•

[♤♡◇♧]

•

"Well, you can't say it wasn't original." 

Fyodor woke up in the infirmary. As soon as he opened his eyes, he could see Nikolai hovering over him, grinning from ear to ear. He got scared and kicked him.

"Ouch!" he complained dramatically and fell off the bed on purpose.

"Nikolai!" exclaimed Fyodor, sitting up and looking at the albino lying on the floor. "I'm so sorry! You scared me..."

Sigma smiled by his side.

"Hey, that's no way to treat your penguin," he scolded affectionately. Fyodor blushed. "You don't have to make that face. Anyway, I was just leaving."

He winked mischievously and went to the other side of the infirmary, where Chuuya and Dazai were discreetly observing them.

Gogol got up from the floor and smiled at the Russian.

"Hello," he greeted. "You fainted from exhaustion a while ago. You told me you have anemia, right? You shouldn't have run so much. You must be exhausted."

"A-ah, y...yes..." This was the return of stuttering Fyodor. With Nikolai so close to him, smiling so brightly, he felt unable to utter a single word.

"And, about your question..." The albino got even closer to him, and Fyodor's breath caught. "Yes, I want to be your penguin. Or your dove, or your swan, or your parrot, or any bird that mates for life. I love you, Fedya."

The Russian's face couldn't have been redder, and all he managed to say was:

"I love you too, Kolya."

They joined their lips in a sweet kiss while Sigma, Chuuya, and Dazai cheered them on from the other bed where the chestnut-haired one was lying after his latest suicide attempt.

When they separated, they smiled at each other, confident that from now on, everything would be better.

。*✧⁠•The End•⁠✧⁠*⁠。

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Thank you so much for reading! This came to me once when I was at a piano recital and was very nervous, and I remembered that my dad had told me that penguins only have one partner in life, and I came up with writing a fic like this.

Also, it's the first Fyolai I've ever written. It was a lot of fun!

By the way, and sorry for the spam, hehe, but I made a Halloween animation, so go check it out!

https://pin.it/XPjLcU8

(I'm the one singing in the background! It's a Spanish cover of Rin Kagamine's 'Happy Halloween.')

See you in others projects!