Akabane Karma is a demon and I HATE HIM AND I WANT TO PUT A BULLET IN MY HEAD FOR JUST BEING AROUND HIM!

Gakushū aggressively wrote in his paper.

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Stupid kill joy, has no concept what 'fun' is. He's so annoying, I Hate him. With a capital H.

Karma wrote irritably.

The more and more he thought of the strawberry blonde, the more and more his irritation was fueled.

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Gakushū has decided that, tomorrow he will ask his father to give him a new partner. And he will not stop until the man gives in!

Then morning rolled in, and as the father and son ate a quiet breakfast together, Gakushū gathered his nerves and cleared his throat. Gakuho looked at his son. "What is it?" He asked.

"Fa--Dad. I'd like to ask permission to switch partners" Gakushū began respectfully.

"Permission denied" Gakuho went back to his breakfast.

"I do not understand why you think Akabane and I would be good partners. Yesterday he dragged me to the arcade and we wasted half a day! And he and the Nobuyuki twins fought students from another school" Gakushū tried to make his father see his reasons. "And, we hate each other"

"I told you didn't I? The partner you received will be your partner for the entire year, if you don't like them" Gakuho placed a hand under his chin. "You suck it up" he smirked at Gakushū's look of disbelief.

"Oh, and how is your project doing? I'm sure you and Akabane have achieved something at least. What have you written so far?"

Gakushū scowled, before ignoring his father completely and stabbing his food aggressively.

Later at school, Ren found his friend in an empty hallway leaning against the window with a scowl. Oh boy, it was clear his buddy was in a bad mood and in need of some cheering up.

Good thing for him his mother packed him the left over cheese cake from last night. He knew how much Gakushū liked cheese cake.

Approaching the boy, he tapped his shoulder and smiled at him when Asano whirled around to face him. "Hi" he took out the box of cheese cake from his bag. "Want some?"

Asano looked at the box, before taking it and opening it. Ren handed him a plastic fork, to which the strawberry blonde gratefully took. "What's wrong now? Is Akabane giving you a hard time?"

"What do you think?" Asano glared at him.

Ren observed his friend as he stuffed himself in the cheese cake, enjoying it a lot. "Well, why not just give him a chance? Like ..get to know him better? Isn't that what your project is?"

"It's hard because I always see the bad in him" Gakushū rolled his eyes.

"Why not try to see the good then?" Ren suggested. "Agree with him more, see what he likes. You don't even need to treat him like a friend if you really don't want to, just treat him like a science experiment. You like experiments right?"

Gakushū took another bite of the cheese cake. He didn't tell Ren that his idea was ridiculous but he wasn't agreeing with him either.

"I mean how bad can it be? It's only one week. You don't have to act like you like the guy" Ren went on. "You can get to know a person without becoming buddy-buddy with them. Akabane can just be your social experiment and a quick access for a good grade to pass your dad's class"

Gakushū handed him the empty box. "I'll give it a thought"

After school, Gakushū found Karma walking to the school gates.

He caught Karma's arm stopping him. The red head turned and gave him a raise brow look. "Need something second place?" He smirked condenscendingly.

"Let's hang out" Gakushū blurted out. Karma blinked, not sure if he heard right. "Uh, what?"

"Our project requires us to spend a great amount of time together to get to know each other. So" Gakushū bit the inside of his cheek as he lowered his head, blushing in embarrassment. God this was a blow to his ego. "Let's...engage in..um, prepubescent activities--or, something"

Karma stared at Gakushū, before bursting out laughing and pulling the red faced strawberry blonde towards him. With his arm around Gakushū's shoulders, and still laughing, the two walked to the city.