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That's Amore
by Jennifer Stampede

Author's Note: The math may be wonky, as it is late and I am giddy with exhaustion...why can I only write when I'm about to conk out? Well, write may be too strong a word.

Warnings: Oh, Krishna, I don't know. Beware of surprise!sap.

Standard disclaimers apply.

He had a problem.

And it was a problem with a deadline.

It was…a romantic problem.

February 12, 1:33 P.M. 34 hours and 27 minutes to 0.

Mitsui Hisashi was thinking about candy.

He knew his crush liked food. It was one of the things he liked about his crush. The problem: he didn’t know how his crush felt about candy.

Because candy wasn’t really food, was it? Not that his crush didn’t eat candy, because, for fu*k’s sake, his crush had the mother of all sweet tooths—but where did formal candy come into this? Would it have to be designer bonbons? Or just a bag full of Hershey’s Kisses, or a box of Pocky? Everyone loves Pocky.

“PAY ATTENTION!”

A powdery chalkboard eraser got him square in the face.

“What the hell?” Hisashi roared, jumping up, coughing chalk dust.

“I’LL SEE YOU IN DETENTION, MISTER!”

February 12, 3:20 P.M. 32 hours and 40 minutes to 0.

In a hot, stuffy classroom, Kogure Kiminobu was terribly stressed out.

He stared down at the book in front of him, numbers and letters swimming together in a river of gibber and jabber. What class was this again? Where was he? Was this school? What time was it?

Sports, Kiminobu was thinking, something to do with sports should do the trick…but is that really romantic?

Hell, did his secret crush even go for romance?

But wait, he thought to himself, his pencil squiggling something incomprehensible and numeric into the answer box for an English question, am I supposed to make the first move, or is—

“Kogure-san?”

Kiminobu blinked up at his teacher, who was looking at him worriedly.

“Are you feeling well, Kogure-san?” the sensei asked, looking very much as if she wanted to feel his forehead with the back of her hand. “Do you need to go to the clinic?”

“Oh, no, sensei,” Kiminobu said weakly. “I’m perfectly fine.”

She frowned, but let it pass, moving on with the lesson. Kiminobu slumped back.

How romantic could a new armband be, anyway?

February 12, 5:47 P.M. 30 hours and 13 minutes to 0.

For the third time that day, the ball ricocheted off the back of his head and out of bounds.

“SENDOH AKIRA!”

Akira winced. Whoops.

“Sorry, Coach,” he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

“If you can’t be bothered to play, you can ride the bench!”

“You mean it, Coach? Thanks!”

Ignoring the highly amusing expressions of incredulity being made at him, Akira shuffled over to the bench and took his seat with a huff.

Romance was tricky business.

What do you get someone you hardly know?

It was times like these that Akira wished he could live up to even half his reputation. If he were even just half as clever, sophisticated, and perverted as people seemed to think he was, he’d certainly have no problem picking out the perfect romantic present for his latest seduction.

But he wasn’t even just half as clever, sophisticated, or perverted, and it wasn’t so much a seduction as a mountain, and he wasn’t so much Mohammed as a nervous teenage boy.

Flowers, maybe? But flowers were for girls.

He could invite his crush to dinner? Ha, right, if soba noodles are romantic…

Basketball in the moonlight? My God, this was Valentine’s Day, not a trashy novel…

A serenade? Sure, if it came in the form of Sting tickets...

He scratched at his head, misery weighing heavy in his bones. “I’m such an idiot,” he moaned.

“I concur!” shouted Koshino Hiroaki enthusiastically as he went by.

February 13, 6:05 A.M. 17 hours and 55 minutes to 0.

Rukawa Kaede was awake.

He stared up at the ceiling. There were many cracks in the ceiling, fifty-two to be exact, and one of the lights needed changing.

The windows were brightening. His alarm clock, pristine and new and never used, read 6:05 in glowing green numbers.

Downstairs, he could hear his mother puttering in the kitchen, always the early riser. Down the hallway, his father was running the shower. Everything else was quiet.

Kaede scowled darkly up at the ceiling with the fifty-two cracks and the burnt-out light.

He knew exactly whose fault this was.

February 13, 10:15 A.M. 13 hours and 45 minutes to 0.

In his second period, Okita Michael yawned and stretched.

“Okita-san,” the sensei said, tone dangerous, “are we boring you?”

Which was a redundant question, as this was English class and he spoke it better than the sensei did. “Absolutely not, ma’am!”—with a Southern accent, just to tweak the teacher’s nerves.

The sensei snorted and turned back to the proper pronunciation of “appreciate.”

Michael looked out the window and smiled.

Now, just how do I get it over there…?

February 13, 2:27 P.M. 9 hours and 33 minutes to 0.

Hanagata Toru adjusted his glasses for the sixty-third time in twenty-nine minutes.

He checked the clock again. Damn it! Hadn’t it been three o’clock just a minute ago? When was this class ever going to end?

His thoughts went to the very neatly, very anonymously wrapped box in his bag and the letter that accompanied it. Just remember them made him twitch nervously.

And, damn it, he had yet to decide if this was really the right way to do it or not.

Shouldn’t he be waiting until March 14th or something?

Wait…did this make him the girl?

“Water,” Toru gasped hoarsely, and tore out of the classroom, leaving the sensei to blink back dust.

February 13, 7:19 P.M. 4 hours and 41 minutes to 0.

“I have HAD IT!”

A certain basketball team manageress very uncharacteristically stomped into the office, a hysterical glint to her eyes. Akagi Takenori, who had only stopped by to pick up some forms on the way home, blinked slowly.

“A sign,” Ayako was babbling feverishly, “that’s what we need, a sign! A sign for all the lovestruck morons migrating here! Thank You, God, for Thy infinite wisdom in not permitting them to breed!” Her eyes alighted on the forms in Takenori’s hands. Snatching them out from right under his nose, she grabbed a heavy black marker from the nearby desk.

“Yes,” ranted Ayako, “that’s what I’ll do—I’ll put up a sign! No more bothering Ayako-san for where the nookie is, kiddoes, just FOLLOW THE SIGN! FOLLOW THE SIGN TO TRUE LOVE!”

Cackling madly, wielding her little paper fan as if it were a katana, Ayako scurried from the office, attempting to balance the forms on her arm as she scribbled.

So. They had finally gotten her, too.

Takenori sent up a prayer for patience and aspirin.

And just before he left, he took a look-see in the boys’ locker, half-afraid of what he might find.

There, on a certain locker, was taped a piece of paper, one of the forms he’d been working on.

HERE BE
SAKURAGI HANAMICHI’S LOCKER
NOW LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU INFATUATED FOOLS!
—AYAKO

The locker appeared to be overflowing with…wrapping paper? Flower petals? Shoe laces?

A burnt-out light bulb?

Takenori stared. And then he left.

And, as he went out the shortest way possible, kept passing more of his forms, all taped to the wall with large, black arrows drawn on them, pointing back the way he’d come.

February 14, 12:00 A.M. 0 hours and 0 minutes to 0.

Somewhere else in Kanagawa, Sakuragi Hanamichi sat up in bed in a cold sweat, heart hammering and a feeling of terrible premonition in his gut.

-FIN-

Author's Note, II: Because I'm a silly otaku...

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