Author's Notes: So this is not originally the one-shot I wanted to write, but then in the spirit of Valentine's Day I've decided to go ahead and see what I can come up with within an hour. This is the end result. This takes place in an alternate world where the death game never happened and Yuuki was completely healthy. Hope you enjoy it.

Will You?

She was the girl who everyone in school likes; athletic, jovial, social. He was the loner upperclassman who always spent his lunchtime by himself. On occasions, they would see each other as they walked down the same hallway, but otherwise did not pay much attention to one another. They had never spoken and possibly never will have, had they not found themselves staying back afterschool for cleanup duties whilst everyone else left.

"It's Kirigaya Kazuto-sempai, isn't it?" Yuuki asked.

The storage room they were in was stuffed with boxes containing old equipment, stacked up upon each other with a dangerous lack of care. Yuuki had came to retrieve a mop when she ran into the skinny upperclassman. He almost jumped in surprise when she spoke, nearly tripping over a crate of computer hardware.

He nodded after recovering. "Yes, it is."

"I'm Yuuki. Nice to meet you!" She smiled, extending her hand. After a moment of hesitation, he took it. His touch was soft, feminine like, and he gave a nervous smile in return.

The next time she saw him was several days later in the school's computer lab. The blinds of the windows were shut, shrouding the room with near darkness. He sat at a far corner, headphones on, focused intensely on his monitor, the sound of his monotonous typing resonating like a mindless drone. Yuuki walked up and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Oh, it's you," he said.

"What you doing?" she asked.

"I'm working on a Top-Down AI that would be able to learn through its own experience, perhaps even mimic human behavior. It's for an upcoming tech competition I'm taking part in," he explained.

"Ah," Yuuki said. She understood none of what he said. "Good luck."

She saw his name come up in the school newspaper two weeks later, having the top prize in an interschool competition for his AI program YUI which could process data and respond in human-like ways. A quote from the article said that the sixteen-year-old next plan to create a physical body for YUI to use so that it may be able to interact with the world just like a regular human being would. It also says that some experts in this field were interested in meeting with the bright individual.

"You should ask him out," her sister Aiko said when she told her about Kazuto.

Her face flushed. "W-What? No."

"Why else are you telling me about him?"

"I just thought it's pretty awesome what he has accomplished."

"Mm-hm." Aiko smirked. Yuuki threw a pillow at her.

Though she did wonder whether the prodigious boy had a girlfriend. She doubted it, for she had not even seen him with one friend let alone with a significant other. Now that she thought about it, there was actually very little that she knew about him. With that in mind, she decided she would find out more about Kirigaya Kazuto.

"Why don't we exchange numbers?" she asked.

"Huh?" Kazuto said. They had run into each other in a hallway between classes. Around them, other students nonchalantly made their way to their next period, chattering amongst themselves.

"Why don't we exchange numbers? It'll be nice if we can contact each other."

"O-Oh okay."

She gave him her number. It was painfully obvious that he had never got a girl's number before, judging by his reaction. "Umm. Give me a miss call so I can get yours as well?" she said.

"Oh right. Sorry."

They spent the next few nights messaging each other back and forth. At first the conversation was stale and stagnant, with Yuuki doing most of the talking. Eventually, Kazuto began to feel more comfortable talking with her and started adding more to his responses besides the generic. She found out that he had a younger sister her age, computing had been his interest ever since he got his first PC, and that he was an avid video gamer just like her. They made it a point to play a MMO together.

Her friends asked her who she was texting so much these days and she told them they were surprised. "Who? I don't think I've seen him before. Why didn't you tell us you're in a relationship?"

"No, I'm not in a relationship. He's just a nice guy to talk to," she said. Though deep within her, she wondered if that was what she really thought.

The days went by, and eventually both Yuuki and Kazuto found themselves on cleanup duties again afterschool. They greeted each when they met at the storage room again.

"Come on, I'll help you with your homeroom, and you help me with mine. We'll get it done faster that way," Kazuto said with a smile.

She took that offer gladly and for the next hour, they dusted, swept, mopped the rooms. It was tiring work, but Yuuki found herself at peace with a boy who just a month ago she had barely knew. Strange how things had changed since then. When they'd finished, they returned the cleaning equipment and headed to collect their bags before leaving school.

At the gate, Yuuki tapped Kazuto on the shoulder. "Hey, it's Valentine's tomorrow."

Kazuto raised his eyebrows. "Oh is it? In all honesty, I forgot about it."

Yuuki laughed at that. That was so of him. "It is."

"You must have lots of guys asking you out," he said.

"I do, but I turned them down. Most of the guys I know, I just don't see them in a romantic way. Except for one," she said. Her gaze averted from him.

"One?"

"You. It's you," she blurted it out and before he could respond she continued, "So, I was hoping…" Her heart beat faster as nerves threatened to overtake her, but then she forced herself to calm down. Her sister's words came to her mind again and she took a deep breath before asking. "Will you be my Valentine's?"

For a while he did not say anything, but then he smiled. And she thought it was beautiful smile.

He said, "Yes."

Author's Notes: Spending Valentine's writing a romance fanfic, hmmmm not sure if that's sad or alright lol. But I guess it's still quite constructive.