Today is September 25! Otherwise known as Kirihara Akaya's birthday! This is dedicated to him now lets's begin!

Tutoring the Devil

It was a normal day in Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku, or Rikkaidai for short. All of the students bustled around in the halls, not wanting to be late for class. One student in particular had just walked into their class; unbeknownst to them someone had been impatiently waiting for their arrival.

--

"Hey, Kirihara, last to arrive again I see," I laughed as the curly haired boy walked in. "I can't even remember the last time you came to school before me."

"Shut it Amagumo," he growled slightly before sitting in his seat. "I woke up late today."

"That was your excuse last week," I said, pointing an accusing finger at his face. "Yesterday was because you had forgotten something and the day before that was that you got attacked by a stray dog. When are you going to accept that I'm always going to be one step ahead of you?"

He growled some incoherent words as the bell for class rang and our teacher walked into the room. The students in the room chattered on until our teacher dropped his heavy textbooks on his desk, effectively making a loud THUD sound. As they all scrambled for their seats I turned my body so I was facing Kirihara once again.

"So, Kirihara," I said as I twirled a long strand of my black hair. "Did you finish the English homework assigned yesterday?"

"We had English homework!?"

--

The day continued on like that with all their classes. Unfortunately for Kirihara he was in every class with that girl. Throughout the day he had endured torturous questions that both made him look like an idiot when he answered and made others think of him as crazier than before. In fact, he was being tortured at this very moment.

--

"Liar, we had no English homework," Akaya accused as we packed up our stuff.

I snickered lightly at his exasperated look. He must've taken all the time between classes finishing our supposed 'homework', which he got wrong by the way.

"It's not my fault," I said, a smile on my face. "Maybe I just wanted you to be ahead of the class. Although that is kind of hard to imagine since you suck at English."

He glared at me as he swung his backpack over his shoulder and I swung my messenger bag onto mine. I was about to walk out the door and to the cafeteria for lunch when the teacher stopped us both.

"Kirihara-kun, Amagumo-san, could you two please stay back for a bit?"

Turning slightly in mid-step I walked over to the teacher's desk as Kirihara did the same.

"What's up teach?" I asked, my smile fading slightly when she looked at me sternly. "Sorry,"

"Anyways," she said slowly, "Do you notice a difference between these two tests?"

She slipped two pieces of paper in front of us on her desk, one with almost no red marks and the other covered in them. I smiled when I saw that the one with almost no marks was my paper, but then I looked over at the other paper. In messy handwriting at the top of the paper was the name 'Akaya Kirihara'. Smirking slightly I glanced over at him, but I wasn't expecting the sight that I saw. He looked nervous and in his own little world as he shuffled from foot to foot. I frowned, not used to this new side of him that I was seeing.

"As you can obviously tell one of these papers in much better than the other," The teacher pointedly looked at Kirihara then at me. "And since I don't accept such poor grades I need you, Kirihara-kun, to take a re-test, but since I can't trust you to study on your own and pass I'm going to have to take drastic measures."

"What kind of drastic measures?" I asked, eying her in confusion.

"Amagumo-san, I'm going to have to ask you to tutor Kirihara-kun before next week."

I stared at her blankly as I hear Kirihara go off in the background.

"No, no way am I accepting her as a tutor! Why do I need a tutor anyways!? I can study on my own! I—"

"I accept,"

"What?"

"I said I accept," I said, looking over at Kirihara as he gave me a shocked look, "Besides," I said, turning towards the teacher, "We wouldn't want Kirihara-kun to be left behind in school. That would just be horrible."

"Thank you Amagumo-san, I trust you will take care of Kirihara-kun in his studies." Our teacher said as I smiled at her.

"What; no way am I—"

"Come on Kirihara-kun," I said, latching my hand onto his wrist, "Let's get started with your studying right now! See ya teach!"

I waved at the teacher with my free hand as I dragged an unwilling Kirihara into the hallway and through the halls to the cafeteria. When the smell of food hit my nose I immediately let go of Kirihara's arm and walked into the lunch line. As I reached out for a fruit cup I heard someone step into line behind me. Looking out of the corner of my eye I saw Kirihara with a pout on his face. I ignored him as I got the rest of my lunch and went to sit at my usual table. All of my friends were giggling about some random crud when I sat down.

"Hey Tsuki-chan, did you hear about what happened to Chieko-chan yesterday?" my friend Haruka asked me excitedly.

"No," I said, stabbing my food with my fork as a disgusted frown made its way onto my face. "What happened?"

"Okay so she was in the library right?" Haruka started.

"Yeah, and then as she was about to reach for a book on one of those very high shelves," another friend of mine, Maiko, said.

"You know, the ones that you can't reach without a stepstool," Moriko, Maiko's twin, interjected.

"Yeah, and she didn't have a stepstool so—"

"Hey, I wanna tell the story!" Chieko said as she interrupted Haruka. "Anyways, so I didn't have a stepstool so I couldn't reach the book and then the most amazing thing happened!"

"Let me guess, someone got it for you?" I said.

"Not just anyone! It was Hiroki-kun from Science class!"

I covered my ears slightly as each one of the girls squealed in delight about the little meeting. Chieko had been in love with Hiroki from the first day of first year and since I was his Science lab partner she often asked me questions about him. With all the time I spent with him I could tell that he liked her as well, but both of them were to shy to say anything.

"So, how about you Ayako-chan? Anything good happening with you?" I asked the girl sitting across from me. She was a new student, only been in Rikkaidai for three weeks, and we all had befriended her easily. She was a really smart girl but almost too shy.

"Oh, um, well…" She trailed off, looking up and behind me. All the other girls did the same, staring with wide eyes behind me. I was confused until I heard a familiar cough behind me.

"Oh, Kirihara, what are you doing here?" I asked as I turned towards him.

"If you're going to be helping me with my studying then you're going to sit at my table." He said, a small blush on his cheeks probably from all the girls staring at him.

"Well, why can't you sit at my table?" I asked with a raised brow.

"Um, well, actually Tsuki-chan, I'd think it would be best if you went to sit with Kirihara-kun at his table," Moriko started.

"Yeah, we wouldn't want to distract him with all of our chattering over here now would we?" Maiko finished.

I looked at all of my friends for a few seconds before letting out a tired sigh.

"Fine," I said as I stood up and grabbed my lunch plate. "Come on Kirihara, let's go."

I dumped my lunch tray into the garbage as we walked through the cafeteria to his table. It was on the other side of the café and was already almost full.

"Konichiwa minna-san," Kirihara said as he sat down in an empty seat. I walked across the table and sat so I was directly across from Kirihara. Unfortunately for me, all the people sitting at the table had stopped to look when I did.

"What?"

"Ne, Kirihara, I never knew you had a girlfriend," a red headed guy said as he looked over at us.

"She's not my girlfriend," Kirihara yelled, glaring at the older guy, "She's just helping me in English class."

"What's wrong with your English class?" Another guy asked. He had grayish silver hair.

"Kirihara here failed a test so our teacher told me to tutor him for the week," I said, smiling up at all the guys.

I watched as Kirihara shrunk into his seat as the rest of the team pointedly looked at him.

"That is not acceptable," A guy with a black hat on his head said. "If you do not bring your grade up I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you from the regulars."

"You're lucky you have someone to tutor you Akaya," a guy with a shaved head said. "By the way," he said, turning to me. "My name is Kuwahara Jackal."

I smiled at them all as they introduced themselves one by one. It was the silver haired guy, Nioh, to speak to me when they were all finished.

"So… what's your name cute stuff?" He said, putting an arm around my shoulder.

"Tsukiakari Ushiro-Amagumo," I said, pushing his arm off my shoulder, "But you guys can call me Tsuki-chan."

"Wait, then how come Akaya here calls you by your last name?" Bunta asked me as he eyed the curly haired boy who was poking at his lunch in disgust.

"Yeah, Kirihara-kun," I said, resting my head in my hand as I leaned towards him, a smirk on my face. "I'm always telling people to call me Tsuki-chan. How come you don't?"

"Because," He mumbled as he glared at me.

"Awe, come on! Tell me why!"

"No,"

"Fine," I said, standing up from my seat. "We'll start your tutoring after school at your house. You don't have practice today right?"

"No, but I thought we were going to start right now during lunch." He said as he stood up as well.

"No time," I said, pointing to the clock at the far wall. "Lunch is gonna end soon."

Akaya's House

"I'm home!" Kirihara yelled through his house as we both entered.

Slipping off our shoes at the front door I noticed just how tall Kirihara was compared to me. He was at least three or four inches taller.

"They must be working late today," Kirihara mumbled as he led me up to his bedroom.

His room was messy, typical of a boy, and covered in video games. I recognized most of them because I had a few in my room as well.

"Hey cool," I said as I picked up one of my favorite games, "I didn't know you played this."

"Yeah," he said, smiling at me for once. "I've already beat it twice in a row."

"What; I can't believe you! I can't even get passed level five! You must've cheated somehow."

"Nope," he smirked. "Want me to show you?"

I thought about it for a bit before nodding my head enthusiastically.

"How about this; I tutor you in English so you can pass your test and in return, you help me defeat this game."

"Deal,"

"Now let's get started on some English work!"

A Few Minutes Later

"Wow, you really do suck at English," I said as I watched Kirihara try to finish the work I had given him.

"Hey," he complained, shoving the papers off his desk so they fell onto the floor. "I thought you were supposed to be helping me!"

"Fine," I sighed as I went to sit cross-legged on his bed. "We'll start with speaking in English since it's a bit easier than writing it."

"Okay," he said as he stood from his chair to sit next to me. "What's first, teach?"

I blushed a bit as he used my usual phrase. Why was I blushing? It's not like I actually liked Kirihara… right?

"Um… let's start with introductions. I'll introduce myself and then you'll do the same. Okay?"

He nodded a bit, looking focused on what I was about to say.

"Hi, my name is Tsukiakari Ushiro-Amagumo." I stated in English. "Your turn,"

"What?"

I looked at him a bit dumbfounded.

"You're not serious are you? Are you sure you're in the right grade, I mean, come on! You have the English vocabulary of a six year old!"

"Hey, that's not helping me pass English!"

"Whatever," I roughly sighed again as I combed my hand through my long black hair. "Okay, here," I said, handing him a textbook. "I'll ask you some questions from this book in English and you have to answer me… in English. If you need help some of the questions are in that book. Ready?"

"I guess so…"

"What is your favorite sport?"

I watched as he thought about what I had said. He seemed to have a sudden thought for an answer as he started searching through the book I had given him. When he saw that it was filled mostly with English words he froze for a second, studying what it said. At first I thought he had comprehended what I said when he finally looked up and opened his mouth to answer.

"Blue,"

…

"You're hopeless!"

--

The next few days went along like that, with Kirihara and Tsuki working diligently on their English homework. Time seemed to slow down for the both of them as they tried very hard to make Rikkai's tennis devil understand his worst subject. Afterwards the two would take a break from all the studying and play video games, sometimes going to the arcade together.

Soon enough the week had ended. What had happened next, no one would have expected.

--

I ran through the hallways towards my English class. School had just ended and I'm pretty sure Kirihara had finished his make-up test by now. Hopefully, with all the tutoring we went through, he had passed with flying colors.

"Kirihara!"

I waved at the curly haired boy a bit ahead of me with a wide grin on my face. Skidding to sudden stop in front of him I immediately asked him the question that had been burning in the back of my head since school ended.

"So,"

"So what?" He asked, acting like he was clueless.

"Did you pass or what!?"

He looked down a bit before going through his bag. I heard the crinkling of paper as he shuffled around in there before he successfully pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper. Opening it up after he handed it to me I immediately looked at the top of the page for the score. Right next to his name is big red block letter were the numbers: 86 percent.

"You passed!" I yelled as I hugged him around his neck, knocking him back a few steps. "Of course it's not as good as I would like it to be but it's still a passing grade!"

"Thanks for all the help in studying," he said, looking away from me as I stepped bag from my surprise hug.

"We should go celebrate!"

"I have tennis practice today."

"Oh," I smiled half-heartedly as we walked through the hallway to the tennis courts. I had grown accustomed to following him there for when we were still studying.

"We can go after practice though! What do ya say Tsuki-chan?"

I stopped mid-step as he walked ahead a bit before turning to see why I had stopped.

"Tsuki-chan…? What's wrong? Don't you wanna go celebrate with me?"

"Yeah, I'd love to go and celebrate with you… I'm just trying to understand the fact…… Did you just call me by my first name?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You never do that! Who are you and what have you done with Akaya?"

"I am Akaya! And what about you huh? You never called me by my first name before."

"Well, I just thought it'd be appropriate since we're friends now." I shrugged.

"Maybe I thought the same," he argued. "What do you got to say to that?"

"That's a bunch of bull," I laughed as I walked up to him. "Come on! The sooner we get to your practice the sooner we can leave for the arcade to celebrate!"

"Hey, did you know it's also my birthday today?" Akaya asked as he poked me in the shoulder.

"Really?" He nodded. "Well in that case…"

Reaching up onto my tippy-toes, I tilted my head up a bit and kissed him on the cheek.

"Happy birthday Kirihara Akaya! Now hurry up!"

With that said, I started running ahead of him to the courts.

"Hey, wait a second! I have more stuff to carry than you! Wait up!"

"Hurry up to slow-poke!"

"Hey, I actually understood that one! Now slow down!"

Laughing once more, I turned the corner of the hallway. I could definitely get used to this.

The End