Archive of Our Own

It was 8 o’clock in the morning when the silent swallowed, off-sounding tune of the Ninomiya’s doorbell rang. Ninomiya Kazunari had already grabbed his schoolbag and was slipping into his sneakers when his mother came running to the entrance and gave him his small bento box for lunch that he forgot in the kitchen. A tiny, thin black cat followed the woman and meowed a few times. Nino reached down to pat her and to brush some threads of wool, she seemed to have played with, out of her scrubby fur. The cat started to purr and nestled her tiny head closer to his hand.

“Did you feed Haru properly?” his mother asked and the young man nodded his head.

“I did and if she didn’t have enough she can go on a hunt for mice at school or something,” the boy said, getting a critical look from his mother, “Mom, the doorbell needs to get fixed, the sound is horrible and most of the time it doesn’t work anyways,” he continued and his mother reached out to his necktie and the collar of his dark blue blazer to fix it for him. When she tried to fix his tousled black hair too, he slightly pushed away her hand.

“I know, I know, next month, Kazu, next month there will surely be some money left for a new one,” she said and smiled towards her son who just rolled his eyes.

“You know, that’s not that important that you need to fix it with your hardly earned money, I could fix it just in the blink of an eye with my -,” her son tried to offer again but his mother put her finger onto his lips to mute him and just shook her head.

“And you know that I’m really proud of my talented son and everything but we agreed that all of us live just like normal humans within this small house of ours so no, you don’t need to help me in such a way, thank you, darling,” she then placed a kiss on his cheek that he rubbed away slightly embarrassed after that and giggling she advised him to greet his friends at school.

When Nino (how he was usually called by his friends) exited the door - Haru following him, tapping a bit clumsily over the dusty entrance mat - no one could be seen and so he sighed. Just like always, his friend who used to pick him up every morning to go to school together - although he often enough had said that he doesn’t need to get picked up (most likely because he wasn’t in the mood to share talks in the early morning hours and his friend was just too talkative) – must be hiding somewhere or whatever. His friend thought that was funny, even more if he surprised Nino to such an extent, that he almost suffered from a heart attack. No need to mention, that Nino didn’t find that funny at all…

“Masaki, come out from wherever you are, you know, I’m not in the mood for games like this in the morning,” the student said grumpily and walked around the small apartment complex’ corner to the back to get his old, dirty bicycle from there. He dropped his schoolbag into the basket behind his bike’s seat and also took an old, crooked-looking broom that was leaning next to his bike to fixate it onto it so that he could take it with him. Out on the streets, he felt a wind gust right next to him and shortly after that his ear was filled with a complaining voice.

“Oh, come on Nino, don’t be such a Grinch!”

Aiba Masaki was sitting on his own broom, his schoolbag hanging loosely from the stick and slightly entangled with the brushwood. He had lowered his height so that he now was floating in the air right next to his friend. His brown hair was tousled from the wind and he was pouting jokingly, “It’s the first school day after holidays and our last year in High School starts today, you could be a bit more in high spirits, Nino! Like why aren’t you riding your broom to school for once instead of riding your old boneshaker? It’s so much fun!”

Nino again rolled his eyes when Aiba made a dangerous looping for demonstration purpose and almost fell down from his broom, decided to ignore him and sat onto his bike.

“Hop on, Haru,” he told the black cat that was sitting on the ground, waiting for an invitation and then the cat jumped, first onto Nino’s lap, seeking for another patting of her head and then back into the basket, making herself comfortable next to Nino’s school bag. Aiba reached his hand out for the cat and tried to pat her but like always, he just earned a hiss and Haru arched her back in defense.

“Don’t touch her, you know she doesn’t like you!” Nino scolded his friend who made a face as long as a fiddle.

Aiba loved animals so much but ironically because his grand-grandfather had been a werewolf, most animals reacted pretty sensible and scared to him due to the inherited blood that was still running through his veins. At least, he didn’t inherit the turning-into-a-wolf at full moon part from his grand-grandfather, Nino thought thankfully.

When Nino started pedaling, Aiba was flying right next to him and as Nino didn’t seem willing to talk to him, instead Aiba started telling him about the chaos he and his little brother had caused to their parents this morning already. Of course not willingly, they just wanted to help with preparing for the restaurant’s day but yeah... Nino knew his friend good enough to know that even if he always had the best intentions, the outcome wasn’t that good most of the time, especially not if he tried to use magic.

~*~*~

Nino and Aiba met a few familiar faces on their way to school. Some of them passing by with their own brooms, some of them passed by feet or bike. They met some curious first-graders, obviously totally excited about their first day of school. Some of them were showing off their magical skills with some small tricks with their wands while others were watching them stunned and impressed, in case they were not as gifted with such skills. Since not everybody was able to use magic in this world, school was organized pretty normal with just the tiny addition of a few magic-related subjects in which the teachers taught their magical talented pupils how to properly control and use their powers while the others participated in club activities or other subjects they could choose.

Even, if they were allowed to skip the entrance ceremony which was only important for the first graders anyways – and yes, they intended to skip it also this year – the two friends arrived at school quite early. Nino had insisted on being early so that they could find out in which class they had to go and everything just in time. It seems like he and Aiba had ended up in the same class again which earned Nino a hug and a happy cheer from his friend. Despite being one year younger, Nino was in classes with Aiba since their second year of Middle School – he still wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not - because Nino (as a scholarship student) simply had jumped over one whole year because of his good grades back then. Some teachers told him that if he wasn’t that lazy with studying he could already attend university. Anyways, it was kind of a miracle, how Aiba had managed to not have to repeat the second year of High School because last year he had been even worse than usual.

Nino couldn’t check the rest of the list for other friends’ names or such, since Aiba blocked his sight and they got interrupted by Matsumoto Jun, a good-looking second grader and friend of them since he entered school last year. The boy was all smiles, when he came running towards the two, his schoolbag holding in front of him so that a silver fluffy-haired cat that was sitting in there, wearing a huge purple ribbon around her neck, like always, could enjoy full view.

“Nino, Aiba! It’s been a long while, how are you, how were your holidays?” Jun asked smiling and stopped in front of them.

Aiba immediately bent down with the intention to pet Jun’s cat asking, how “Duchess” was doing lately, just to earn another hiss, followed by a hit of her right prank. The friends didn’t really meet Jun during holidays because Jun and his wealthy family had spent most of the time in England visiting their holiday residence, a historical castle that they had inherited from the European ancestors of his mother. They just returned two days ago because his father had to take care of his business again and his mother, a famous actress, had got another role in an upcoming movie and had to start preparing for filming soon.

Aiba dropped something about a three-days trip to an Onsen with his parents and little brother, and a visit at an amazing amusement park nearby, while Nino didn’t have to tell much, only that his mother had been visiting his grandparents to help them a bit and that he and his sister had to take care of the apartment because traveling expenses for all three of them would have been too expensive. More than that, he of course had been busy with his part-time job as a home tutor for middle school students and his part-time job at a nearby conbini…

After chatting for a few more minutes, the boys finally made their way upstairs to classes. Jun bid them good bye after they had fixed a meeting point for lunch break – their usual spot in the school yards under a huge oak tree near the broom racing field – and Aiba and Nino climbed up another floor.

The school was filled with happy laughter of people and excited squeals of happiness about the reunion in classes for some people, while some girls were crying that they had ended up separated. A few boys got scolded by a teacher for riding their brooms in the corridors of the school building and had their brooms get confiscated until the end of the school day. At least no-one’s wand exploded like Aiba’s last year which made half of the floor their class had been located at unusable for about two hours until a group of teachers had fixed the mess again. Luckily, no-one got seriously injured back then. Nevertheless, Nino, who had sprained his shoulder a little after getting pushed against a wall because he had been standing too close to Aiba when the incident took place, had teased his friend, who had of course been deeply sorry, with that for a couple of weeks.

When the two entered their class, Aiba’s eyes widened in excitement when he saw a familiar boy with dark brown hair, big round eyes and a cute tiny owl sitting on his shoulder standing up from his seat and approaching them with a wide smile which made his eyes look like cute tiny crescent moons. Aiba didn’t hesitate a second and threw his arms around his friend, scaring away the little owl with his sudden action.

“Sho! You’re finally back from America?!” he squealed and with that could compete with every girl at school, “And we’re in the same class now! How are you? Ah, it’s been sooooo long!”

Sakurai Sho, the fourth of the group of friends chuckled happily about his friend’s cheerful reaction and answered his embrace with a tight hug, “Aiba-chan, did you grow again?” he laughed and then his eyes fell over Aiba’s shoulder onto Nino who was just standing there with a not so amused look on his face.

“Hey Nino, I'm back,” when Aiba finally let go of Sho, the other took a few steps closer to Nino to greet him, opened his arms for an inviting hug and flashed a warm smile towards him but Nino just passed him without looking at him and everything that Sho could hug then was a table that came flying his direction and hit him directly onto his stomach with full force. The small owl that had settled back down on his shoulder shrieked and flew up in surprise again; just to settle down in Nino’s hair after that.

“Ugh… his skills improved even more…,” squinting his eyes in pain, Sho slumped down to the floor, holding his stomach.

While Sho recovered, Aiba helped him standing up again and gave him an apologetic smile, “Let me translate this for you – he missed you too!”

“He… he didn’t even need to… use his wand?! And I was the one who wanted to show off a little with my improved magic skills but I can't keep up with something like that,” Sho pouted and followed Nino who had at least put down his schoolbag onto the empty table next to Sho’s place but was still ignoring him.

“Nino, I’m sorry, you know I was busy, I only returned yesterday and -,” he began but Nino – at least not ignoring him any longer - just shot him with a death glare.

“I know, you’ve been too busy for the whole last year to just contact your best friend from time to time, via phone or mail or whatever, I get it,” Nino stated and started unpacking his schoolbag.

Sho rushed around the table in front of Nino and grabbed another chair to get Nino’s height and to look straight into his eyes, “You know that I’m not using such modern technique and it’s not that I didn’t send you letters, is it?” he said defending.

“You wrote letters?” Nino asked frowning, “How come, that I never received them, are you kidding me?!”

Sho frowned as well, “You didn’t receive them? How is this…,” his eyes then searched for his owl that in the meantime had started to hide in Nino’s schoolbag and he reached into it to pull it out of the bag again, holding its claw and looking at it with an earnest look, “Fuku-chan, didn’t you bring Nino my letters?”

“Sho, are you stupid?! You can’t send such a small owl over the pacific; she would die half ways and fall into the sea!” Nino exclaimed and took away the small owl from him to pet it. The small ball of fluffy feathers fluffed up even more and looked reproachfully at its owner.

“But she was always away for about two or three weeks; I thought she successfully delivered the letters to you! And I wondered why you wouldn’t answer my letters and thought you’re busy with your part-time job or something!” Sho pouted.

Nino sighed heavily and face-palmed, “Really Sho, you’re such a smart guy and then you’re so stupid sometimes… I guess she dropped the letters somewhere and just flew back after giving up, maybe spent some nice days in the woods and pretended to have delivered the letters because she was afraid to get scolded by you. And you know what, there’s something called mailing service. Normal humans use it nowadays. It’s quite useful and if I had known your whereabouts, I would have sent you a letter but your parents only told me you were “wandering around somewhere in America to train your skills and study oversea’s magic” well… a few more details would have been quite nice tough!”

Yes, Nino was still offended. He really was. It has been around a year that Sho had left Japan to study overseas and somehow holding contact just didn’t work because his best friend was just too strange, at least that was Nino’s opinion. Even if Sho’s family was the inherits of an ancient magical family and even if his parents treasured their old Japanese family traditions to an extraordinarily strict extent, it didn’t excuse that their son didn’t even know how to properly use a stupid cell phone. That “modern technique”, like Sho called it, was quite useful sometimes and even Nino had afforded to buy his own cell phone with the savings of his part-time jobs two years ago. But stubborn Sho still refused getting one, even if his family was rich enough to buy cell phones for all the pupils of the whole school! It was almost a miracle, that Sho was allowed (and willing) to not wear a kimono outside of his house and more than that it was a mystery how Sho managed to get granted his wish to study overseas for a whole year. Nino back then had bet that his parents wouldn’t let Sho go and he had lost the bet and had to give Aiba most parts of his precious collection of stickers from famous broom racers that had afforded half of his life to collect.

“At least, now we’re in the same class, isn’t that nice? We can catch up for the year we lost easily like this,” Sho tried to lighten the situation but Nino was still pouting and started to ignore his best friend again.

But it was true - somehow he was a little happy that now he and Sho had ended up in the same class. Even if the year overseas had been pretty interesting and useful for the other, it didn’t change the fact that he lost tracks on the Japanese curriculum and more than that it would have been his last year in high school, including preparations for entrance exams at universities and stuff like that and so it had been clear that he would have to repeat the third year. It just seemed to be a lucky coincidence that they even ended up in the same class now.

There were still a few minutes left until the first lesson of the new school year would start and Aiba, who had taken the seat behind Nino tried to cheer Sho up, who still got ignored by his best friend, when most of the class’ students suddenly turned around in their seats with a terrified look on their faces as they felt a strange presence coming closer. It wasn’t the same for Nino, Sho and Aiba who should already be used to said presence but Sho was kind of distracted and surprised to sense it today and shot a questioning look at Aiba.

“Don’t tell me…,” he started and stood up again, looking at the back of the classroom curiously until another student popped in his head through the door and the other students sighed in relive. Thank God, it was only him!

He was a tired looking guy with a pointed nose, slightly pointed ears, and tiny sharp canine teeth which just showed when he opened his mouth for another yawn. It was Ohno Satoshi, well known all over the place as son of a witch and the only known vampire in the area. Aside from his visual features and that he was more active during night than day (which of course collided with school and other activities and made him give off a scary atmosphere from time to time since he obviously was a bad morning person), he fortunately didn’t really take much after his father so that he wasn’t a danger for anyone. His skin was kind of tanned since he enjoyed outdoor activities (especially sleeping outside under the warm sun rays) and he didn’t even need to suck blood or anything, but just had an unnatural strong desire for tomato juice. His favorite dish was actually pasta with tomato sauce and garlic for which his father even threw him out of his mansion once. Since then, Ohno only ate that dish when he was out with his friends.

“Satoshi!” Sho exclaimed surprised as the half-vampire approached them after he recognized his friends and settled down at the table behind Sho’s, “You’re still here at school? What happened?”

“He slept through half of the tests last year and has to repeat classes – again - because he wasn't capable of the subject matters,” Nino stated coldly, not paying much attention since he was still offended because of Sho.

“That’s awesome, now we’re four out of five in the same class! I bet Jun will be jealous like hell when he hears that!” Aiba giggled excitedly when he reached at Ohno for patting his shoulders as the other dropped his head onto his crossed arms to continue sleeping after murmuring a half-yawned “welcome back” to Sho.

For the rest of the morning’s lessons, that started just right after that with their home room class, Nino continued to ignore Sho, Ohno slept for another few hours despite the teachers trying to wake him (but even if Ohno was a nice guy and wouldn’t hurt a fly, he could be pretty scary when someone woke him) and Aiba asked Sho question after question about America until the teacher kicked both of them out to the corridor for standing there for the rest of the lecture and Aiba continued questioning Sho there.

~*~*~

A few hours and a bunch of apologies later, Nino had given up on ignoring Sho and so the group of five – including Jun who indeed was incredibly jealous that he was the only one not being in the same class with his best friends – enjoyed their lunch break under the oak tree near the broom racing field. Sho had brought a huge box of traditional Japanese cooking from his personal cooks, inviting all the others to take something. While Aiba and Jun gladly took the offer - completely ignoring their own lunch boxes - Ohno stuck to his package of tomato juice after tasting some sushi rolls and Nino didn’t even finish his own small bento and only tried a bit of sushi because Sho forced it into his mouth. The same happened to the American sweets that Sho had brought along. Aiba was especially excited about the so-called “Reese's”, peanut butter cups that Nino instead found incredibly disgusting and much too sweet for his taste.

“Let’s do it, the field is empty right now!” after eating their lunch, Aiba jumped up and now everybody knew what was coming up next.

All of them – expect from Sho – had brought their brooms with them and especially Aiba and Jun were pretty excited. Aiba pulled up sleepy Ohno and suddenly, the half-vampire didn’t seem that sleepy any longer. He turned around to Sho as he reached into one of the inner pockets of his blazer, carefully pulling out a small black bunch of whatever (it turned out to be Ohno’s little bat “Nezu”) to entrust it to him. He then grinning followed his friends, grabbing his broom which was leaning against the oak tree in the shadows and he and Jun (leaving behind Duchess in Sho’s care as well) hopped onto their brooms and flew to the starting line of the broom racing field where they got off again to wait for the others.

“Sho, you’re doing the referee like in old times, ne?” Aiba suggested and Sho – still stuffing his face with American sweets – nodded agreeing, “And you –,” Aiba grabbed Nino’s collar who just tried to hide behind Sho together with Haru but obviously failed, “You’re coming along with us, no excuses!”

Aiba pulled Nino behind him, his and Nino’s brooms in the other hand, to the others while Nino tried to protest. Aiba pushed him next to Ohno and gave him his broom, even if he still didn’t look amused.

“Oh come on, don’t give me the Grinch again, Nino! You only have to participate as long as it’s fine for you but don’t ruin the fun for us from the start already!” Aiba tried to convince his friend and Ohno patted Nino’s shoulder, flashing him a gentle smile – his sharp teeth showing a little at the corners of his lips - to cheer him up.

Jun put his broomstick between his legs, grabbing the stick firmly with both hands and put his feet onto the ground to stabilize his position and to prepare for pushing off from the ground. He looked just too excited and ready to go, “Can we start now, can we start now? I practiced a lot in England, wait and watch my improved skills! I’ll beat all of you, I swear!”

“Oho, look who’s eaten too much self-confidence pills,” Ohno chuckled and flashed a challenging look at his younger friend.

Nino sighed and rolled his eyes, “Alright but I’m in for only 2 laps! I swear, if you want to continue, fine, I’ll drop out then, I don’t want to spend the rest of the day in the sickroom!”

“Alright, it’s 10 laps like usual!” Aiba reacted just as he didn’t listen to what Nino just said. He raised his hands, waving at Sho who had finally stood up and came closer to the field, “We’re ready Sho, give us the sign!”

Sho lifted both of his hands (after pushing another sushi into his mouth, quickly chewing it so that he would finish it on time) and the others – expect from Jun who was already fidgeting nervously on his broom behind the starting line – finally got in positions.

“You all know the rules! No pushing, no short-cutting, 10 laps in total, drop out if you can’t control your broom any longer, the last one left or the first one finishing the 10 laps will be the winner! Ready?” Sho announced in a loud voice, receiving a “Ready!” of his four friends in response and then he let his hands rush down through the air, yelling a loud “GO!” which didn’t only act as the starting signal for the boys’ broom race but also attracted the interest of some nearby students. Interrupting their lunch break, when they saw who was up to race, they stopped willingly and turned to face the four racers, starting to cheer for them instantly.

All of them had made a nice start, pushed their bodies together with their brooms up into the sky, not too high above the ground but just as much so that all of the viewers had to lift their heads to be able to see them. Most of them – especially the new students from first grade – were pretty impressed by the scene that they could watch right now. All four of them were pretty fast and so in the beginning it was hard to tell who would lead but then after about half a lap, Nino took the leading position. He was pressed down onto the broomstick, his arms and legs tightly clamping onto it and his face straight forward. Surprisingly, it was all-time-tired Ohno, catching up to him coming in second, a bit behind them was Jun and last came Aiba, loudly cursing that even Jun actually overtook him, obviously not used to lose to the other.

The positions stood quite similar for the next one and a half lap but then, just as announced, Nino seemed to drop out. First, his broom became slower, then he reduced his height and finally, close to the ground, he slumped down from his broom and just dropped down onto the dusty ground, lying down onto his back and closing his eyes while he was breathing heavily, holding his stomach with both hands. Sho came running quickly to his friend, helping him to sit up again and looked at him worrying.

“You’re OK, Nino?” he asked frowning and Nino just waived his hand slightly.

“Don’t worry, it’s just the usual -,” he then covered his mouth quickly. Sho froze for a second but then Nino recovered again and tried to stand up with Sho’s help, just to find himself a bit dizzy on his legs. He accompanied Sho back to where the other was supposed to watch the race and sat down next to him onto the grass. Haru came running, nuzzling her head at Nino’s hand to cheer him up.

It was a pity but just as much as Sho’s fear of heights (which was the reason why he never rode a broom, even if his parents bought him one of the most expensive ones back then when he entered High School), it was also commonly know that Nino, despite having the potential of being speedy and agile, suffered from a heavy motion-sickness that made it even impossible for him to ride a broom longer than a few minutes, even if he himself was the one guiding it. He always tried to back off from races like this one then, because besides from not wanting to feel sick, he also didn’t like to loose and it was obvious, that he was the one dropping out first with a condition like this. Maybe he should start to leave his broom at home as well. Slightly pouting, he now carefully took Haru to pull her onto his lap and to brush his fingers through her scrubby fur.

Nino continued accompanying Sho to watch the others finishing their race and there were only two laps left, when Aiba suddenly managed to catch up to Jun again (Ohno was so far ahead already, so that it was out of question who would get first place) but then, suddenly, his broom seemed to make problems. Maybe it was because he was trying too hard, but it seemed, like Aiba had completely lost control. Jun and Ohno didn't notice, but Nino and Sho as well as the other viewers did. A young girl started to scream when Aiba suddenly lost height, too fast, not able to stop. Nino jumped up in fear, while Aiba tried to pull the broomstick upwards again to prevent a painful crush onto the ground. Somehow he managed but trailed off and completely lost the course, heading towards the school building in high speed and strange movements and screaming in panic. Nino started running after his friend as fast as he could, while Sho could just stand there and stare after Aiba in shock.

Finally, Ohno and Jun turned around as well and when they saw what was happening, they changed courses and followed their friend as well. While Aiba's broom made a strange swerve up higher, Nino suddenly vanished into thin air while he was running, just to find himself on top of the school's rooftop again just a second later. He took a deep breath to recover from the energy loss that his usage of magic right now had caused and then lifted his arms as he spotted Aiba coming closer, just a few meters above him in the air. He squinted his eyes and concentrated all the power he could afford right now onto his friend who was still trying to win over the control of his broom while screaming in panic.

Suddenly, Aiba stopped screaming and when Nino carefully opened his eyes again to check what happened, something like a huge soup bubble had caught his friend in the middle of the air and had stopped his broom's movement. Aiba stared at his broom and then at Nino surprised and finally he could calm down again, sitting up straight and freeing his cramped legs from the broomstick.

“Woah, Nino, what's that?” he asked and his voice sounded silent, echoed and far away from the inside of the bubble.

Ohno and Jun had arrived at them as well in the meantime, curiously looking down from their brooms to what was going on. Nino sighed in relieve but still had to concentrate, trying to move the bubble with Aiba in it slowly but safely to the ground of the roof top. However, in the end, it was too much for him and he couldn't keep the spell working any longer. He still struggled a bit but it couldn't be helped... At least, Aiba wasn't that high up in the air any longer but nevertheless he fell down some meters as soon as the bubble burst into nothing. He let out a short, high-pitched scream when he just fell since his broom wasn't working any longer. He crashed down, breaking his broomstick and bumping his head pretty heavily against Nino's who just moaned from the sudden crash before he fell down to the floor, Aiba on top of him, and everything around him went black.

~*~*~

When Nino regained consciousness again, his friends were crowded around him, looking at him with worrying faces. He felt some tipsy pawns coming closer and Haru started licking his nose when he lifted his head a little bit wondering. The others must have brought him to the school's sickroom, he assumed when he sat up, holding his dizzy head, and recognized the white curtains around the white comfy bed he was lying in.

“Nino! Are you OK, Nino?” Sho asked worried, holding his best friend's shoulder to support him.

“Sorry we couldn't be of help...,” Jun murmured, sounding a bit guilty and Ohno just slightly hung his head in an apologetic gesture.

“I'm alright, don't worry,” Nino answered. Well, his head hurt a little but besides from that, it was OK. He looked around, finding Aiba standing next to Sho and looking embarrassed, guilty and a bit shy, “And you, are you OK, Masaki?” Nino asked and Aiba just jumped closer, pushing Sho aside so that he could grab Nino's hand in gratitude before he burst into tears.

“Nino, I'm so sorry! You got hurt because you helped me, it's all my fault and you saved my life! Thank you, really, thank you!” he cried with his eyes wide open, huge teardrops running down his cheeks, “You're my hero!”

“Ehm, don't exaggerate, it's OK, really. Take better care of yourself, that was pretty dangerous! I'm glad that you didn't get hurt... or died...,” Nino answered a bit grumpy and tried to get his hand back that Aiba still clenched as if it was a treasure he didn't want to let go again. He sniffed a last time, before he looked at Nino seriously, taking a deep breath.

“That was the first time that someone saved my life! Nino, I think I love you!” Aiba suddenly blurt out in a serious voice, drawing everyone's disbelieving stare at him immediately.

After a few seconds of silence, Nino chuckled and murmured to Ohno, who was standing right next to him at the other side of the bed, “I must have bumped my head pretty hard, I just thought he told me that he loves me!”

“Well... he actually did but maybe he just mixed up some words,” Ohno stated, nodding slowly.

Nino's surprised look wandered from Ohno back to Aiba. He frowned.

“You must have bumped your head pretty hard as well, Aiba!” Sho suddenly chimed in, indignantly.

Aiba shook his head, his face suddenly blushing deeply red. He clenched Nino's hand even more, “No, no, I'm serious!”

Nino shot a look around helplessly, obviously not feeling comfortable about the situation.

“Well, well, you can be lovey-dovey later on, let me check Ninomiya-kun first,” the nurse said when she came around and pushed Aiba slightly away to check Nino's head which was covered in a small bandage around his forehead and did a short reaction test, “Alright... it's not that bad. You can go if you feel better,” she said to Nino and he nodded thankfully. Then she turned around to the others to scold the whole group, “You should pay more attention! I know, broom races are allowed during spare time, even if I think the headmaster is taking this a bit too lightly but well, at least I don't want to have to take care of injuries already on the first day of school! Now, back to classes, everyone!”

When Jun and Ohno just agreed and strolled away slowly, Ohno looked back to the others. Nino seemed to feel good enough to go back to classes as well, but he seemed a bit troubled about Aiba suddenly being even more clingy than usual, offering him to carry him to the classroom. Nino backed off and preferred to get supported by Sho, who has also taken care of Nino's broom and other stuff. Aiba whimpered silently when Nino kicked him away slightly to get some more space.

~*~*~

Even if Nino and the others had thought that Aiba just made some kind of stupid joke about his confession to Nino, it actually seemed that he indeed was quite serious about the inflamed love to his live savior. The following days, Aiba didn't only ask Nino repeatedly if he wanted to go out with him, he also treated him to lunch, ice cream and whatever came to his mind. He even bought him flowers but other than the last few treats - that Nino actually didn't reject because he was always short on money anyways - the flowers were just too much. It had not only been just embarrassing to get picked up by Aiba in the morning like usual (even if Nino already had hired Sho and Jun as his “bodyguards” to accompany him on his way to school), Nino also was allergic to the flowers Aiba had chosen and so he suffered from an allergy attack almost the whole day, although Aiba had quickly gotten rid of the flowers for Nino's sake.

Of course, Nino rejected Aiba each and every time. Seriously, he wasn't interested in going out with him. Not that Aiba wasn't a nice guy and Nino was sure, that one day his friend would find a super nice girl (or guy if he preferred, Nino didn't really care) and that they would be the most lovely couple ever but he himself was just not the right person for Aiba. When Nino told Aiba exactly those words, his friend was highly depressed to get dumped and kept unusually quiet for the next days. Nino felt bad for his friend, but it couldn't be helped. He didn't bear any romantic feelings for his friend and he was quite sure, that Aiba would get over his feelings pretty quickly anyways. Indeed, it seemed, like Nino was right, a few days later, Aiba was back to his cheerful self and the friends were able to chat again like nothing had happened between them. Nino was relieved...

However, it was just a few nights later, when Ohno - whose family's mansion was located on the hill near the school building - went on his nightly walk together with Nezu and heard some strange noises when he crossed the school yard (that he took as a short-cut to pass to his favorite part in the city). Curiously, he approached the side of the school building, the noises were coming from and hidden in the shadows of the night, he could peek through the windows of one of the school's labor classrooms ablaze with light, spotting Aiba dealing with some strange substances, following some unidentifiable scrawl on the blackboard behind him and laughing like crazy while doing so. Then, some security personal burst the door to the classroom open and threw Aiba out of it, after he forced him to clean up the mess he had created. Shrugging his shoulders, Ohno didn't pay much more attention and left without looking back. It wasn't the first time that Aiba broke into school to misuse the lab and it wasn't the first time that he got caught either. But this was not Ohno's problem.

~*~*~

“Aiba, what is this?” Nino asked critically, his arms crossed, when his friend offered him a strange colored, green-blue drink with red fuzz on top in a plastic cup, during the next lunch break.

“Don't worry, it's something really delicious, I made it myself, just for you!” Aiba smiled at him, pushing the drink into Nino's hands.

“I thought you gave up on hitting on me, Masaki, seriously, that's not funny,” Nino sighed.

“Uhm... I wouldn't drink this, Nino, I saw that madcap experimenting at school last night,” Ohno warned Nino, sniffing slightly at the drink, making a disgusted face, before Nino put it down onto the ground, flashing Aiba a smile between thankfulness and rejection. Haru tapped closer to the plastic cup, sniffing at it as well. She arched her back and hissed at the drink before she ran away to hide behind Nino.

“It's just something to make you feel good...,” the other pouted.

“Hey, what's up? Why such long faces?” Sho asked, who was just arriving at their usual spot for lunch break, Jun in tow. He took place next to Nino while Jun settled down next to Ohno who quickly put one hand protectively over his jacket to hide Nezu from Duchess, that was approaching the half-vampire playfully.

“What's that?” Sho asked further, when he spotted the drink in front of Nino, “It looks interesting, just like something that I tried in America!”

Ohno chuckled, “It's something that Aiba made for Nino, I think it looks disgusting!”

“I don't want to drink it!” Nino declared again but the next moment, he already regretted that he just let the strange drink stand there were it was instead of throwing it away or anything because Sho had his hands quicker on the drink than everybody else could say something to prevent him from taking it.

“If you don't mind-,” Sho said and set the cup onto his lips, gulping down half of it as if he didn't have something to drink for days.

“Sho, NO!” Aiba screamed and desperately covered his mouth with his hands, looking at his friend with widened eyes.

The others jumped up in horror, Nino reached at Sho, trying to pull away the rest of the drink.

“Hey!” Sho protested, looking at Nino, who just pushed him down so that Sho almost choked on a bit of the drink and squinted his eyes from the shock.

Nino finally had crawled on top of Sho in order to save him from whatever evil Aiba had mixed, pulled the half empty plastic cup out of Sho's grip and spilled the rest of it onto the grass next to them. Angrily, he threw the empty plastic cup as well as a bewildered look at Aiba who had hid his face.

“Oh, oh...,” Jun whispered and Ohno just stared at the others.

“What the hell was that, Masaki?! What did he drink right now?!” Nino yelled at him, still sitting on top of Sho who was coughing underneath him slightly.

Aiba sighed deeply when he let his fingers slide down his face again to throw a guilty look at Nino.

“It's... it's a love potion,” he murmured, folding his hands on his lap, in such a low voice, that Nino and the others weren't even sure if they understood him correctly.

“Excuse me?” Nino asked again, frowning.

“It's a love potion!” Aiba blurt out, “It's a love potion that makes the person who drinks it fall in love instantly with the person he sees first after drinking it!”

“What?!” Nino asked in a cracking voice, slowly looking from Aiba down to Sho who has stopped coughing in the meantime and just stared at him with his big round brown eyes.

“Oh...,” Sho murmured slightly embarrassed, his cheeks taking a shade of light red, “Is that, why I think that you look just beautiful right now?”

Nino blushed.

Aiba pointing at Nino, “I wanted him to drink it, Sho! Look what you did, you messed up everything!” he scolded the other desperately but Sho didn't take any notice of him and just continued to stare at Nino.

Nino jumped up, leaving Sho behind and went a few steps closer to Aiba, bending down and reached out to grab his collar, pulling him a bit closer.

“Sho messed up?! Masaki, what the hell, who do you think created this mess in first place?! You're such an idiot, really!” angrily, Nino pushed Aiba back, got up again and turned on his feet.

Haru, who had been hiding in the shadows of the huge oak tree while the tumult took place, ran after him and when Sho and Aiba stood up as well and wanted to follow Nino, the other just turned around, his face still red from anger and pointing at his friends.

“Stay where you are! All of you!” he yelled, before he rushed back into the school building to go where ever, he just wanted to get away.

“Did you ever notice how cute he is when he's angry?” Sho asked with a loving smile on his lips, watching after Nino.

“Oh, shut up, Sho!” Aiba hissed and kicked the empty plastic cup of his love potion away.

~*~*~

Nino was pretty pissed off after Aiba's “failed experiment”. Well, even if it wouldn't have failed according to Aiba's plans, Nino wouldn't have liked the outcome either but now, even Sho was involved and this was definitely not OK. Angry at Aiba, Nino had decided to stop talking to him and he tried to ignore Sho, who was just sitting next to him like always, expect from that he was flashing shy, loving smiles now to Nino whenever the other looked into his direction, which distracted Nino pretty much.

At least, Sho – even if he seemed to be “in love” with Nino now – wasn't too importunate. Other than Aiba, Sho was more cautious and didn't openly hit on Nino. He was more... asking Nino if he needed something, offering him to carry his bag, sharing his food with him (alright, he did that before but now he offered to feed him!) stuff like that and smiling at him lovingly every time he looked at him. In short, he was spoiling Nino and actually, Nino quickly grew to like that and he felt bad about this. He didn't want to start to make advantage of Sho's fondness just because he felt comfortable with that. Sho was a too important friend to him and he didn't want their relationship to drift off into such a direction.

Nevertheless, with the days passing by, Nino couldn't ignore any longer, how much he actually enjoyed spending time with Sho. At first, he had tried to send Sho away, told him that he should leave him alone and whatever but Sho just continued smiling at him and tried to spend as much time as possible together with Nino. So after a while, Nino had given up and agreed to Sho, that he might bring him back home after school for example. He even allowed him to pick him up in the mornings (which he had forbidden Aiba for the time being of course) and with each time, Sho smiled happily at Nino, Nino couldn't resist to smile back a little bit more.

Actually, Nino had sworn to himself to forget the crush that he was secretly holding on Sho already since quite some time. Especially, when that idiot declared that he would spend a whole year in holy-fuck-couldn't-it-be-even-further-away-America more or less out of the blue to train his skills by learning stuff from other culture's magic, Nino just wanted to forget. But obviously his plan had failed terrific. He would never admit it to Sho or the others, but Aiba had been right when he said on their first day of this school year, that Nino had missed Sho during his absence. When he saw him again, he knew that he had obviously not forgotten his feelings for Sho and Nino had started to wonder, if Sho had missed him as well...

Anyways, Nino couldn't completely ignore Sho. More than only his secret love, he was also his best friend after all and this hadn't changed just because Sho had been absent. So he tried to act as normal as possible around Sho. They talked a lot when it was just the two of them, Sho told a lot of things about America and Nino told him some funny stories about Aiba, Jun and Ohno that happened during the time, Sho had been away from Japan.

„You missed a lot of tings, really,” Nino giggled when he and Sho one morning climbed up the stairs to head into their classroom.

Sho sighed, “I know, I missed a lot. I even missed your progress in magic, I'm really impressed that you're able to use magic without your wand now!” Sho admitted admiring and when they entered the classroom, he smiled at Nino, “Actually, I wanted to become better, just like you and the training overseas was really hard but I didn't expect that you would make such big progress as well! I'd like you to show me how it works, can you, please?”

Sho put his school bag down onto his table and Nino settled down as well onto his own place, ignoring Aiba who greeted him loudly, trying to get Nino's attention but failed endlessly since Nino was still not willing to talk to him.

„Alright, I can show you,” Nino agreed and whispering to Sho, so that the others couldn’t hear it, he added, “Today after classes on the rooftop?”

Sho nodded excited, flashing a broad happy smile towards Nino.

They met just like they had agreed on the rooftop, right after classes, when Nino had made sure that Ohno and Jun took Aiba along on their way home so that his friend couldn’t disturb or anything. It was still weird and Nino didn’t like how affectionate Aiba had turned towards him. It was so much more of a problem for him, that Aiba “loved” him then when it was Sho. It was interesting, how different it could feel to be liked, depending on the person, his character and on how that person was seen by oneself.

“Nino!” Sho waved at him happily, when Nino showed up. He was holding some cans in his hands and gave one to Nino when he came closer.

“You bought drinks?” Nino asked and took a closer look at the can, Sho has pushed into his hand.

“I did, I thought you might be thirsty,” Sho stated and showed Nino to sit down next to him on the ground to rest for a while, “and don’t worry,” he chuckled, giving Nino a grinning look, “I didn’t put any love potion or such stuff into your drink.”

Nino blushed and finally opened his can, “I would never think that you would do something stupid like that, Sho,” he said. At least, Sho wasn’t Aiba. He wouldn’t get such stupid ideas, not even under the influence of some mysterious potion.

When they had finished their drinks, Nino had started to explain Sho more about his use of magic. It was common, that young wizards around their age usually used a wand if they wanted to perform magic and usually, only wizards with lots of years of experience were able to use magic only with their hands, if they even needed them. Sho still was stunned about Nino’s abilities, when the younger with just a few movements of his hands let some stuff from the inside of his school bag float up into the air until everything was dancing in circles around Sho.

“This is so awesome, really!” Sho clapped his hands and Nino looked at him a bit embarrassed, letting his school stuff wander back into his bag, “So why are you able to do that? And how did you learn that within only one year? You weren’t able to use magic like this when I left Japan,” Sho asked curiously.

“I guess, most of it is because I’m generally gifted with big magical power from birth, using magic was always easy for me,” Nino started to explain. It was true, even if his mother as well as his sister couldn’t use magic, his mother always told him that his father was a great wizard with huge powers and that she was proud, that their son came after him, “I think since you’re the descendant of a long traditional family of wizards, you might be able to train your powers to this extend as well,” he continued.

“I'm not as skilled as you are but that would be amazing,” Sho agreed, nodding eagerly.

“It'll work, you'll see! Of course, you have to practice a lot. It’s not that easy in the beginning, you need a lot of concentration and will power,” Nino further explained, earning another nod from Sho.

“First,” he continued, “You need to start thinking about your hands - if it’s easier, the tip of your fingers - as an outlet for your magical power, just like you use to think about your wand. The wand is just some kind of material which helps you to focus onto the way your magic flows.”

Nino put out his own wand, that he had stuffed somewhere in between some school books, to illustrate what he was talking about. Sho pulled out his wand as well to prepare for some practice. Pointing at one of their empty cans with his wand, Nino concentrated a bit, felt some light tickling in his hand when the magic ran through his body, through his wand and came out eventually, easily letting the can grow to three times of its original size. Sho did the same with the other empty can. It was no problem, he was able to perform this since years.

“Just like that, exactly,” Nino said and put his wand back into his bag again, “And now the same without the wand. Look, I’m just concentrating onto my fingers instead of the wand,” the young man held his hands into the direction of the cans and let them both float up into the air.

The sun was already beginning to set and the warm, orange rays of light reflected in the metal of the drinking cans. Sho squinted his eyes a bit and then let his look wander to Nino, who was smiling slightly while he was looking up into the sky, letting the cans turn around themselves for a while. A slight wind was coming up, brushing through Nino’s black, fluffy hair but Nino didn’t let himself get irritated from that and also the cans didn’t move from their spot. The warm light of the sun reflected a bit in his eyes and his hair was shining. It was a beautiful view, Sho thought, his heart beating heavily in his chest. Seeing Nino smiling like this, the nature embracing his nice features, the sparkles of magic in his eyes while he was performing a small miracle, it was literally magical, in more than one way…

“Try it!” Nino encouraged Sho, who was still staring at him fascinated, pulling him out of his thoughts when he led the cans back onto the ground.

Sho cleared his throat, put his wand into the pockets of his pants and took a deep breath. Pushing his sleeves back a little, he reached out his hands, frowning and trying to focus the magic power inside of him onto his hands, just like Nino had told him. But somehow… it didn’t work. He didn’t feel anything, no power building up inside of him, no tickling running through his arms, nothing. He squinted his eyes harder, tried to focus harder, but no, it just didn’t work.

“Nino~,” Sho whined after another try, quickly giving up and letting his arms sink down in frustration, “It’s useless, I guess, I’m just not talented enough,” the older student complained.

Nino giggled, “Come on Sho, don’t give up so easily, it’s just a matter of concentration and time, it’s not that much different from using a wand!”

“You say that so easily, Nino,” Sho pouted a little, “But it’s a fact that you’re the most talented young wizard here at school. What am I talking about - you’re the most talented young wizard I ever heard of. Maybe it’s just that easy for you?”

“Come on, let’s try it again,” Nino went a few steps around Sho, placing one of the empty cans directly between them when he turned around to face Sho, “Just do it the same way I do it,” he suggested.

Nino readjusted his feet so that he was standing relaxed and his body was in balance. He closed his eyes and started breathing calmly, slightly lifting his hands that he placed in the air, his palms facing up, his fingers slightly stretched up, “Just try to feel the tickling in your fingers, that’s enough at first. Calm down, relax and focus onto your inner powers,” he said in a low voice.

Assuming, that Sho was mimicking Nino’s movement, the young wizard continued, feeling the slight tickling in his fingertips and smiled satisfied, “Can you feel it too, Sho?” he asked, his eyes still closed.

“I’m feeling something completely different, right now,” Nino heard Sho’s whispering voice and somehow, it seemed to be quite too close.

When Nino snapped his eyes open, Sho was standing just in front of him, only a few centimeters away from his own face. Nino could feel how his heart suddenly stopped beating as he immediately got lost in Sho’s dark brown eyes which looked at him tenderly and eagerly. The wind was still blowing, rustling through the trees in the school yards, surrounding the school building and somehow it felt like time had slowed down. When Nino’s heartbeat started again, he took a deep breath.

“Sho,” he started whispering, “What are you doing?” he asked, still not moving.

The other slowly lifted his hand and while he looked at Nino with a soft smile, he slightly brushed his hand over Nino’s left cheek, letting his hand rest a little under his chin before he trailed down Nino’s body and finally put both of his hands onto Nino’s hips, stepping a bit closer.

“I’m sorry, I can’t concentrate, I was just thinking, how wonderful you are. How talented and nice and how… beautiful…,” Sho whispered.

When Nino lost balance because his knees suddenly felt weak like pudding, Sho let his hands slip around Nino’s waist to stabilize his friend with a hug while Nino instinctively threw his arms around Sho's neck to find some halt by himself.

“Got you,” Sho smirked at Nino, his face pretty close to the other.

It was so close that Nino could see the small shadows drawn on Sho's cheeks, created by his eyelashes and could feel Sho's breathe against his face. He felt dizzy when he met Sho's eyes again. Sho's face was so close, too close and it came closer and closer, when he was leaning in, slightly parting his full, soft looking, red lips...

When Nino realized, what Sho was up to do, he pushed him away slightly in surprise. Sho immediately stopped but didn't really move. Nino struggled a bit more to free himself from his friend's embrace and backed off a few small steps, pretending to have lost track on times and that he had to hurry home because he had forgotten to help his mother with, well, something. Nino quickly grabbed his school bag and ran away, leaving Sho behind, puzzled. When Nino dashed down the stairs of the school building to head outside to his bicycle, he cursed himself silently. His heart was beating like crazy; he knew that his cheeks must be flushed in a deep shade of red. He had fled from Sho because of that, he suddenly didn't want to be that close to him any longer, despite the desire of actually being close to him at the same time. Yes, this was twisting and Nino himself was confused about what he wanted or didn't want right now but he knew one thing. He didn't want this if it wasn't true.

This evening, Nino locked himself into his room, without even eating dinner, desperately trying (and failing) to forget about what has happened between him and love potion-guided Sho on the rooftop of the school. The next morning, Nino yelled at Aiba, that he should find an antidote to his stupid potion as soon as possible to give it to Sho.

~*~*~

Aiba really started to get troubled and occupied with finding an antidote against his love potion, since it turned out, that Sho's affection towards Nino didn't go away just like that, like Aiba had hoped it would. In fact, he was pretty impressed and pretty proud about his own ability to create such a strong potion, somehow. He didn't expect it to work that well. Even if his potion clearly got the wrong target, it's now proven that it was working and this would mean, he could make another one to try to give it to Nino again.

“Making another love potion to give it to Nino again... Aiba, are you sure, this is a good idea?” Ohno asked Aiba suddenly, as the other was experimenting again in an empty laboratory classroom late at night.

Aiba jumped up in surprise and almost threw away some of his substances and herbs when the half-vampire showed up behind him without getting noticed by him.

“Gosh, Ohno, you surprised me!” the other complained, trying to calm down, “What are you doing, son of a vampire, reading my thoughts?!”

Ohno was so much faster, awake and more skilled during night, that it was still often a surprise to Aiba and his other friends. No wonder, that he didn't hear him opening the window and approaching him. Well, the darker the night, the more Ohno's inner vampire came out. The half-vampire sighed and went a few steps closer to the table; Aiba has spread his notes and ingredients for the antidote on. He darted his eyes firmly at his friend.

“If I could really read the thoughts of other people, I would have done so during tests, then I wouldn't have to repeat classes now,” Ohno explained with a small pout and picked up some of Aiba's notes to take a closer look, “It's just too obvious that you didn't give up on him yet, it's all written over your face!”

Aiba instinctively brushed a hand over his face, knowing that there actually wasn't anything written onto his face and that Ohno was just using a metaphor but nevertheless... He pouted and pulled away his notes from Ohno to rearrange them.

“I think, you shouldn't force Nino to fall in love with you,” Ohno continued, leaning against the table, “Those feelings wouldn't be real and Nino wouldn't be the Nino you fell in love with in first place, right?”

Frustrated, Aiba cringed some of his papers, throwing an angry look at his friend, “What do you know about love, Ohno?” he hissed and turned around to focus on his work again.

“Hm,” Ohno sighed again, “Probably not more than you, experience-wise but I saw people falling in love and this is not something that should happen due to some magical spells or love potions. Anyways, take care, that the guard at least doesn't throw you out of the classroom again!”

When Aiba turned around to continue arguing with his friend, Ohno of course already had disappeared through the open window again. Aiba closed it frustrated.

~*~*~

Nino tried to avoid Sho after what happened between them during their magic practice. Emphasize the tried because it simply wasn't that easy of course. Sho was there in the morning to pick up Nino, he was there the whole day at school, sitting right next to him, following him on every step he took and he was there after school bringing Nino home. Nino's mother wasn't a big help either since she always invited Sho for a cup of cheap tea or something and so Nino just gave up on this. More than that, Sho still wanted to practice together with him and well, who could say „no“ to Sho? Nino couldn't. So he just had to try to ignore those feelings that flooded his chest every time Sho was close to him. Well, easier said than done...

„Sho, do I really have to change into a kimono again?” Nino whined when he got pulled through the huge garden of the Sakurais’ estate, “It’s so bothersome and we only want to practice for a few hours so can’t we just drop the formalities and go through the back door or something?”

Nino hasn’t been at Sho’s place for more than a year but he remembered clearly that each and every guest who visited Sho or someone else from the Sakurai family, had to change into some formal clothes and to greet them. It was a bit strange maybe, but it was just some kind of tradition from the old family and they treasured their traditions a lot. Sho, himself wearing a beautiful dark red kimono with black and white highlights, which make him look so damned handsome, pulled him further along the way. Obviously, this was not negotiable.

“We can do this everywhere, really, what about the nearby park? Or at my place?” Nino tried to change Sho's mind but the other stayed stubborn.

“Come on Nino, do it for me! You look so good in kimono, I didn’t want to miss that chance!” Sho answered honestly with a smile on his lips and somehow, this argument worked on Nino. He didn’t complain any longer and instead – even if he was clearly embarrassed -took the guest kimono, Sho offered to him and let his friend follow him into a small room to help him change when they arrived the house.

Nino’s heart was beating like crazy when Sho helped him to dress into the kimono. At least he let Nino take on the underwear consisting of a white light kimono by himself or he would even have touched his bare skin which Nino definitely wanted to avoid. Like this it was embarrassing enough and he couldn’t remember, when he was the last time so ashamed and nervous, to show himself half-naked in front of someone. When Sho's arms slid around Nino's waist to help him fix the obi of the kimono, Nino stiffed, when he felt Sho's chin resting on his shoulder – not sure if this was just because he got better access to tie the obi or if Sho had other intentions with that.

“See, you look beautiful,” Sho finally whispered into Nino's ear and let his arms rest on his hips just a little longer as it might have been necessary.

His chin still rested on Nino's shoulder when Sho showed Nino the reflection of his slim figure wearing a dark blue Kimono with a nice simple bamboo pattern in light blue print and a yellow obi in a full body size mirror to check his appearance. More than his own appearance, Nino checked the whole image in the mirror - himself within Sho's embrace. The thought, that they looked really nice together, crossed Nino's mind and he blushed, biting down on his lip and avoiding Sho's look when their eyes met in the mirror's reflection.

Nino cleared his throat and slightly brushed Sho's hands from his hips, “We should hurry, I want to start practicing soon,” he murmured and Sho nodded.

They exited the dressing room and went along a long wooden corridor until they got guided into a large traditional room by one of the Sakurais' employees. Sho's parents were already sitting at a table at one side of the simple but beautiful decorated room. The employee showed Nino where to sit down and Nino took place at the table next to Sho in Japanese traditional sitting style after he had lowered his head first to greet the Sakurais.

“I'm sorry for disturbing you,” Nino said in a low voice.

“Don't worry, Sho's friends are always welcomed in our house, Ninomiya-kun,” Sho's father said, nodding slightly at him, “It’s nice to see you again, it's been a while!”

“Thank you. It’s nice to see you again as well, Sakurai-san,” Nino lowered his head again.

“How have you been, is your family doing well?” Sho's mother, a beautiful woman with just the same big round brown eyes as Sho, hiding her smile a bit behind a paper fan with a nice cherry blossom pattern, asked concerned.

“Everything is fine, thank you,” Nino smiled.

Despite their distanced appearance, Sho's parents were really nice people, he just noticed again. They had always been friendly to him and welcomed him with respect, even if he himself came from a poor family. Sho's mother offered some tea, pointing at the tea bowls placed on the table which just got filled by another female employee. Taking the bowl into his hands thoughtfully, Nino took a sip. The taste of this tea was so much better than the tea his family drank at home and somehow he just felt ashamed that Sho drank tea at his house so often lately.

“You know, lately, Nino even managed to use magic only with his hands, isn’t that great?” Sho chimed in and Nino blushed when he heard his friend talking that excitedly about his ability, “I currently train with him, I want to achieve the same one day.”

“This is indeed impressing, Ninomiya-kun, you own our respect. Please help our clumsy son to improve his skills as well. He already got quite better from his training in America but this is pretty hard to achieve so we beg you for your help so that the Sakurai family can be proud of their heir,” Mister Sakurai said.

“I’ll do my best.”

“So was this, what you wanted to talk to us about regarding Ninomiya-kun, Sho?” the other boy's mother asked and Nino turned his head to his friend. Was this so important to him, that he even wanted to tell his parents about it?

“Actually… there is something else that I want to tell you,” Sho spoke up and he seemed even more serious than before.

The young man placed his tea bowl from which he just had taken a sip back onto the table and folded his hands onto his lap. His back was straight when he sat in traditional style on the ground, facing his parents with his head up high and a straight forward look darted at them. The atmosphere had been quite strange already before, but now; everything seemed to be even more formal and strange. Nino wondered, he didn’t know anything about what Sho wanted to talk about. What the hell was he up to?

“Since I think this is an important topic to talk to you as my parents, I wanted to tell you, that Nino –,” Sho raised his voice and slightly pointed to him with one hand, “- is the person that I love from the bottom of my heart.”

Nino’s chin dropped in surprise and Sho’s father dropped his really, really expensive looking tea bowl, the sound of the breaking bowl followed by a silent shriek of Nino. The young man gulped and slowly focused onto Sho again. He must be crazy! What was this stupid love potion doing with Sho's brain?! But he was still all serious and didn’t let himself get distracted by the surprised faces of his parents who looked at him as if he had lost his mind.

“I just thought, you should know that I plan to spend the rest of my life together with him,” Sho concluded and lowered his head slightly.

Nino reached out his hand and tugged slightly on the sleeve of Sho’s kimono, making him turn to him. Sho flashed him a loving smile.

“Are you stupid?! What are you talking about?!” Nino hissed at Sho. Not only that this was the first time that he heard about this “plan”, he even was pretty sure, that Sho's traditionally oriented parents would not be amused at all about their son courting another boy...

“Well,” Sho continued, facing his parents again. His father still hadn’t moved while one of the employees had started to pick up the pieces of the tea bowl and cleaning the floor, and his mother still hid behind her fan, making big eyes at him, “It might be true, that I didn’t win over Nino’s heart yet but I know that my mother wasn’t that fond of my father first either and I can be stubborn, just like you, father, so I’m sure that I’ll succeed in the end.”

Sho’s mother blushed deeply red, sending her husband a knowing look and Nino, whose heartbeat now had started to race, blushed as well. No matter, how ridiculous and unreal this situation right now was, somehow, seeing Sho that serious about this topic, facing even his traditional oriented parents head up high saying that he wanted to win over his heart, made the young man look even more manly and attractive than he already looked in Nino’s eyes. Goddamned, this couldn’t be true!

Sho's father was still in shock and finally, Sho's mother said, it would be better, if Sho left the house for a few hours until his father recovered. Sho must know what was coming up now because suddenly, he seemed alarmed and stood up. He bowed and on his way out of the room, he pulled Nino up slightly as well, to drag him along, clinging their hands together.

“What...,” Nino struggled but Sho sped up, until both of them were almost running, “Sho, what's going on?!”

“He might explode and yell at me, just like when he found out about my plans regarding America. I don't want you to witness such a scene so let's get out of here for a while,” Sho chuckled, obviously trying to make the situation sound less bad as it might really be.

He pulled Nino through the corridors of the house, just quickly picked up Nino's clothes and then they left the Sakurai estate, running through the wide garden. Outside, Sho still dragged Nino along the street, even if he seemed a bit aimlessly. Finally, Nino stopped and made his friend halt as well.

“Wait, where are you going?” the younger asked and pulled his hand out of Sho's grip, “And what the hell was that just right now?”

Nino blushed, when he remembered the scene just some minutes ago in front of Sho’s parents. What the hell was Sho thinking to introduce him to his parents as his love interest? It even sounded as he wanted to call him his “future wife” or something like that. What did Sho expect; did he think that his parents would just accept this and welcome their son’s boyfriend to their family just like this? Putting aside the fact that Nino wasn’t really Sho’s boyfriend but seriously, this whole situation was ridiculous and Nino just could stand there, clinging to the bunch of his clothes that he took from Sho, looking at him, feeling his face blushing and cursing himself for the again speeding heartbeat as well as cursing Aiba for this whole mess he had created.

Finally, Nino made up his mind, turned around, ruffling his hand through his hair frustrated, he declared that he would go home for today, bringing the kimono to school the next morning to return it to Sho. When he started walking, Sho reached out to him, grabbing Nino’s wrist to hold him back.

“Wait!”

Nino tried to get rid of him but somehow, he was just too weak to Sho’s touch and couldn’t afford enough strength to get him off.

“What do you want? Sho, just go back to your parents, apologize, tell them that this is all Aiba’s fault and leave me be,” Nino demanded, his voice sounding angry and sad at the same time.

Sho shook his head, “I don’t want to.”

“Why not?!” Nino was surely close to freak out.

“I’m sorry Nino, I didn’t want to offend you, or them, but I’m not going to take my words back!” Sho started and he sounded serious, “I wanted to show you that I’m serious about you! I wanted to show you that I love you!”

Nino turned around angrily, facing Sho with red flushed cheeks, “What you showed me was just how awesome this stupid love potion is still working, Sho! Wake up already, these are not your real thoughts and desires, this is not the real you! I don’t want to hear a single word of this again! I’m not your boyfriend and you don’t love me, so can you please just cut it out already?”

Nino’s voice had started to shake while he was speaking and he could feel that finally all of this stress, all of what had happened during the last days had built up a huge amount of feelings inside him that he just couldn’t keep for himself any longer. He felt angry, hurt, sad, he felt ashamed because he also had felt happy being together with Sho, he even had felt touched and proud for a short moment when Sho told his parents that he wanted to spend the rest of his life together with Nino but he also felt so stupid because he knew that everything was just the result of Aiba’s crappy experiment. Finally, he felt the corners of his eyes getting wet. Crap, he was getting too emotional about this…

“Nino…,” Sho said in a low voice, wondering about the sudden change of Nino's tension. He got closer, loosening the grip around Nino’s wrist but still holding onto it, “Are you... are you crying?”

“What?! I'm not!” Nino quickly run his hand over his face and backed off, pulling his hand out of Sho’s grip when Sho reached up to his face, “Don’t touch me,” he whispered and now he hid his face behind his bunch of clothes as he couldn’t prevent a small sobbing from leaving his throat.

It didn’t last long until Sho’s next reaction. Just a few seconds later, Nino felt Sho’s arms slowly wrapping around him and stiffened within the warm embrace of his friend, unable to move. He held his breath when he felt Sho’s hands supporting his lower back and hugging his shoulders, pressing him close.

“You're a bad liar, Nino,” Sho said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry!”

“You are an idiot, Sho!”

“I know, I'm sorry.”

Slowly but surely, Nino calmed down. He knew that Sho wasn’t really to blame. He was just the victim of some magic.

“Sho, we’re standing right in front of your parents’ estate, what shall all the people think about us?” Nino murmured from behind his clothes, feeling some curious stares from passing people settling onto them.

“I don’t care!” Sho declared and once more pressed Nino closer before he finally loosened the embrace again, stepping back a little.

The young man pulled down the bunch of clothes Nino had sobbed into, to get a look into his eyes. Nino looked incredibly cute, his face red and his eyes still a bit wet, looking at Sho desperately. The older one flashed him a warm smile and Nino couldn’t stop his heart from beating heavily in his chest, confused if it should be happy or hurt because of the comfort. Sho lifted his hands and cupped Nino’s face.

“I really didn’t want to hurt you; I want you to be happy!” Sho said, his eyes forming those adorable cute crescents and his lips curling up so sweetly into his smile that never failed to lighten up Nino’s mood.

“Because I really love you,” Sho added finally, looking deep into Nino’s eyes, turning more serious again.

As the other just stared at him like paralyzed, not able to react to those words, Sho finally leaned a bit forward, closing his eyes, slowly enough to give Nino the chance to escape just like he did the last time but this time, Nino didn’t and Sho’s plum, warm lips finally met his. It was barely a slight touch of their lips but it was overwhelming. For Nino it felt like the time was standing still and like his heart was exploding. He started shivering slightly as Sho drew back again after a few seconds that had felt like eternity. He caressed Nino’s cheek once again, who lowered his head ashamed while taking a deep breath, clearly avoiding Sho’s look. Finally, Nino lifted one of his hands, putting it onto Sho’s. He pressed it lightly.

“Thank you for saying this,” Nino whispered, “But I know that you don’t really love me.”

Even if Nino just bitterly realized, how much he actually wished, he would…

He lowered his hand; still holding onto Sho’s, gulped and then turned around, letting go off Sho.

“Nino, that’s not true, I really-,” Sho still wanted to convince the other about his feelings but Nino just ignored him and suddenly after a few steps had disappeared into thin air just like he did the one time he saved Aiba.

Sho just stayed behind. He sighed deeply and ruffled his hair, wondering what he should do now.

The next day, Nino didn’t come to school, calling in sick.

~*~*~

„You know…,“ Ohno started in a thoughtful voice when he sat onto the laboratory classroom’s table where Aiba was still trying to mix his antidote to his love potion late at night, together with Jun and Ohno’s help, „Somehow, I feel sorry for Nino.”

“Hm?” Aiba looked up from his work for a moment, his face dirty from sprinkles of mixtures and his hair standing on ends, before he returned to his experiment, “What do you mean? I already gave up on the plan to bewitch him, don’t worry.”

Ohno shook his head and patted Nezu, who had crawled out from somewhere of his clothes and now was hanging on the collar of his sweater with her small claws.

“That’s not what I mean,” he said, “I’m talking about his feelings for Sho.”

Aiba stopped working and finally fully turned around to face Ohno, staring at him. Jun, who was studying Aiba’s notes for the love potion as well as the antidote he wanted to create, to see if he could be of any help, looked at the oldest student as well.

“I saw them yesterday in front of Sho's house. They had… some kind of fight and judging from his behavior I think, Nino is in love with Sho,” Ohno finally stated and while Jun’s face seemed to light up in understanding, Aiba looked at him with a surprised, desperate look.

“What?!” he asked panicking, “What are you talking about? Why should he –“

“But if you think about it, it seems to be obvious, right? Didn’t you see his face? How he’s looking at Sho? And his shy smiles all the time?” Ohno asked, “I may remind you, that it’s not Nino who drank the love potion, nevertheless he’s acting that fond of Sho and his affection, and on the other side is so pissed off because of your love potion. I think the only reason why this can be is, that Nino is actually in love with Sho.”

“That would explain it, yes! And this would also explain, why he’s just not interested in you, Aiba-kun – sorry for mentioning that again,” Jun agreed, nodding his head excitedly.

Aiba let his shoulders sink, lamenting about what he just heard, “Oh come on… if this is true, that means I really don’t have a chance with him? How can I win against someone like Sho, especially if Nino likes him already? And that I even made it worse?!” suddenly, Aiba got panicked again, brushing away his sudden sadness, bringing his hands up to his head, “Oh my Gosh, wait, does this mean… Ohno, what do you think, how far did they get already?!”

Ohno lifted his hand and slapped his friend’s head.

“That’s not the topic right now!” he scolded and decided to keep for himself that he saw Sho hugging and kissing Nino, “I was talking about Nino’s feelings! I just fear, when the love potion stops working and Sho stops being that fond of him, Nino might get really hurt.”

Aiba pouted, holding the back of his head, totally getting the indirect blaming by Ohno for the mess he had created. “So what do you want?” he asked, “Should I let them be and don’t make an antidote?”

“Of course you should make that antidote!” the half-vampire said horrified, “It would be stupid to ignore the situation and after all it was Nino himself who demanded it, right? I think this is just another proof that Nino is serious. He doesn’t want Sho’s affection if it’s only driven by magic, he wants his real feelings and if they aren’t meant to be love then he would rather like to go back to their usual friendship instead of letting Sho getting further controlled by the love potion.”

“Hah~ that must be true love, not wanting to get the beloved person influenced by magic and rather backing off than to force a relationship,” Jun sighed and made a dreamy face for a moment, before he concentrated onto Aiba’s messy notes again.

Aiba hung his head, sighing deeply and started to draw circles onto the ground with one of his feet. He got Jun's hint and he knew that he should be acting similar if he truly loved Nino...

“Gosh, I’m really a bad friend, causing Nino so much trouble, just because I wanted him to be mine. I’m so selfish! And now, he even has to suffer because of me so much!” suddenly there were tears in Aiba’s eyes. He really seemed to regret what he did. He turned his face so Ohno again, “Alright, let’s give it our best to make a proper antidote. Even if Sho won’t love Nino any longer after that, it’s better that way, right?”

Ohno smiled comforting and nodded his head.

“Wait…,” Jun said from behind the notes he was still flipping through, “Before we continue, take a look at this, Aiba,” he pointed at one of the pages showing the list of ingredients for Aiba’s mixture, “I think, there’s something wrong…”

“Huh?” Aiba bent over the table to reach out for the paper sheet, Jun was pointing at while he shortly explained what he meant. Aiba and Ohno widened their eyes in surprise.

“What? But, that would actually mean…”

Jun nodded his head and Aiba and Ohno just exchanged another look.

~*~*~

„Darling, your friends are here, they want to talk to you,“ Nino’s mother knocked at her son’s door.

A silent rustle could be heard from behind the door, followed by a mumble, “Send them away.”

„Nino, let us in!“ it was Aiba's voice, who was standing next to Nino’s mother, trying to gain access to his friend’s room.

„No, why should I, go away!“ Nino’s voice raised a little.

Nino’s mother shrugged her shoulders and lifted her eyebrows, looking a bit helpless to the four young guys that had gathered in the small house’s corridor, “As I told you, he doesn’t want to leave his room and he doesn’t want to see anyone. That’s the third day now already, it would be great if you could get over your differences quickly, I don't want him to miss school longer than he already did.”

“I'm really sorry about this mess,” Aiba said ashamed and bowed in front of the woman. Then he turned to Nino's door again, “Nino, did you get our mails? As I told you, we have the antidote ready so we can give it to Sho now,” Aiba continued.

“Good, go on, give it to him and I’ll return to school once everything got back to normal again.”

“But… You need to be there as well! I’ll explain you the details, when you let us in.”

“… I don’t want to.”

“Please?” Aiba tried again but without any success.

When Nino, who was sitting on his futon, half covered by his blanket and staring at the door with an annoyed look couldn’t hear any further, Aiba sighed deeply. Alright, if nothing else was working…

“Oh my gosh, Sho! Your face looks so strange suddenly!” Nino could suddenly hear Aiba’s troubled voice from behind his door, “Oh no, I guess that’s some side effect from the love potion! Are you OK, Sho? You look really sick!“

The door burst open, Nino showing up, searching for Sho with a worried face, “Sho, are you-?”

Nino was dressed in a plain T-shirt and sweatpants, his bed hair tousled. He looked confused when he saw the bunch of people in front of his door, including his mother who now excused herself and promised to bring some tea and cookies upstairs before she left the boys alone. Sho was standing a bit behind, hidden behind Jun and Ohno and Aiba was now blocking the doorway with his arm, to prevent Nino from slamming the door close again immediately. There was nothing wrong with Sho, he just looked like he got dragged along by the others and waived a bit shyly at him. Nino sighed, annoyed but also relieved, that Sho was alright.

“He looks totally fine, Aiba,” Nino grumbled, turning with a serious face towards his friend, “That was a really mean trick! Shame on you!”

“But it worked!” Aiba flashed him a smile, “Can we come in now? Please?”

Another frustrated sigh by Nino but he didn’t fight any longer and just stepped back, to let his friends enter his room.

The boys settled down onto the ground around a small table while Nino was folding his futon and pushing it into a corner of his room to make a bit more space for his friends. Ohno sat down next to Nino and reached his hand out to pat Haru who was sleeping on a small pillow under the table and purred half-sleeping, snuggling her small head closer to the comforting hand. Jun, Aiba and Sho took place as well while Nino tried to comb his hair a bit with brushing his fingers through it. He gave up with a frustrated grump when it didn’t really help.

“Hah~, I like it here at Nino's place,” Ohno said with a smile on his face, “It's so small and comfy.”

Nino rolled his eyes, “You mean it's too small, messy and just like how poor people live,” he mumbled. Nothing had ever changed. He lived at this place with his mother and sister, who had decided to live as normal as usual, since their own talent in magic was almost not present. It was nothing that Nino was proud about but he himself liked it like it was, even if he didn't admit to that.

Ohno ruffled through Nino's hair – tousling it even more - who looked at him a bit disturbed, “That's not what I said! I really like it! It's different from that spooky cold mansion my parents bought.”

Jun nodded agreeing, “Ohno's place is really scary! Duchess hates it!”

“Sorry for the disturbance, I'm bringing some snacks,” Nino's mother got inside with a tray and placed a plate with cookies and five cups on the table, filling them with tea.

“Thank you very much, Ms. Ninomiya,” Sho said and the others bowed with a “Thank you” as well before she stood up and left the room again with a smile on her lips.

“So,” Nino finally asked, his eyes glued onto the table as he was averting Sho’s look again who was sitting right in front of him at the other side of the table, “Why do you need me now to clean up your mess, Masaki?”

Aiba cleared his throat and finally placed his bag on the table, reaching into it to pull out a small bottle filled with a brown, disgusting looking liquid. The whole table “ew!”ed.

Sho grimaced, “And I'm supposed to drink this?”

“Says the one who drank that strange looking love potion in first place,” Nino snapped, rolling his eyes when he crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“That one looked like one of those drinks in America!” Sho defended himself, getting cut by Aiba.

“I'm sorry, if it doesn't look tasty,” the boy said sarcastically and returned to explain the situation, “You know... this works like follows. Sho-,” he pointed at the other, “has to drink this and then he has to look into Nino's eyes, telling him, that he doesn't love him any longer. Only if he drank the antidote and said those magic words, the spell from the love potion will be broken.”

Sho nodded, “Alright... I understand,” he took the bottle, eying the content a last time a bit troubled, “Do I have to drink everything?”

Aiba just nodded slowly with a serious face and Sho sighed. He opened the bottle and his look wandered back to Aiba, who was nodding faster now and then to Nino who looked at him seriously, his eyes unease and maybe also a bit... sad? Aiba pushed Sho a little bit into the side, encouraging him to drink the antidote. Sho gulped and after looking a last time at Nino, who was now averting his gaze quickly, he lifted the bottle and sat it onto his lips. He took a first sip of the antidote, grimacing but he didn't complain and continued drinking it until the bottle was empty. The others were staring at him with big curious eyes, Ohno formed another “Ew” with his lips and Jun frowned. Sho put the bottle back onto the table and let out a disgusted noise.

“Alright,” Aiba said, “And now the sentence to Nino.”

Sho looked at Nino, who was meeting his eyes again now and took a deep breath.

“Nino...,” he started, his face serious, “I love... I – I love -,” somehow he started stumbling and his face looked unease. He took another breath and tried again, “I love you -, I love... you...”

“...not?” Nino tried to finish Sho's sentence in a low voice, his eyebrows lifted and his arms still crossed.

“But I do love you!” Sho blurt out in a desperate voice. He brushed a hand through his hair.

“What?!” Nino seemed to start panicking, “Sho, you're supposed to say that you don't love me or the spell doesn't break properly!”

“But I don't want to say that, it's a lie! I can't, I love you after all, Nino!” Sho faced Nino properly now with a straight look into his eyes.

While Jun covered his mouth with his hands, Ohno just gaped at the scene. Sho seemed serious about this and Nino blushed deeply when he realized how honest those words sounded. His heart was skipping a beat and gosh, how much was he wishing right now that Sho spoke really the truth... but it couldn't be true after all. Angrily, Nino turned his head and faced Aiba now who backed off a little already prepared for some trouble. And indeed, Nino suddenly jumped at him, trying to grab him at his collar. Ohno threw his arms around Nino and held him back from attacking Aiba so the young man just started yelling at his friend again.

“Masaki, what's that shit?! Your stupid antidote isn't working at all!”

Aiba lifted his hands, waiving them, “Nino, no, no wait, this – this is all a big misunderstanding!”

Nino looked at Aiba puzzled, “What kind of misunderstanding do you mean?”

Aiba flashed him a shy smile, “You know, this antidote isn't supposed to work,” he earned another confused look from Nino.

“Are you making fun of me?! What was this whole show for then?” he asked and finally got rid of Ohno's grip, showing him that he wouldn't attack Aiba. Ohno gave him a warning glare.

„We wanted to test something,“ Jun chimed in in a low voice.

„Test something?,“ Sho finally asked confused as well. Just like Nino, he didn't get at all what the hell was going on right now. At least, Nino wasn't the only one without any clue.

“You know, don't get mad at me please,” Aiba started again, scratching his head, “Actually we found out that the love potion itself didn't work. So there's actually no need for an antidote...”

“What?! Are you kidding me? Sho was totally head over heels for me!” Nino wondered.

“Actually, he is totally head over heels for you, or let's say, that's exactly what we wanted to make sure with that test,” Ohno corrected Nino's sentence and looked at Sho for confirmation. The latter just blushed deeply red and stood silent. He looked a little surprised but also some kind of caught.

“And how was it possible that Sho – if he wasn’t under the influence of some love potion – could do such stupid things? He's a reasonable person but suddenly he behaved like... I don't know, he nearly introduced me to his parents as his future wife, how weary of life was that?! Sho, did you know that the love potion wasn't working?” Nino's look shot from Aiba to Sho who was slightly shaking his head and then to Ohno who spoke up next.

“That was because he thought that he was under the influence of a love potion. I think, this was something psychological,” Ohno pointed out, “He thought that he now finally had an excuse to set free all of his feelings. He wouldn’t have done this otherwise, right Sho?”

“Uhm… I guess not really…,” Sho answered in a low voice, obviously embarrassed about the whole situation.

“But there must have been some feelings already or he wouldn't have reacted to that psychological trick either,” Ohno completed voicing his suspicion, “Which means that – congratulation – Sho really loves you, Nino!”

Nino blushed even more. He couldn't bear it. This was just too much.

“But why didn’t you tell me that it wasn’t the love potion?” he yelled at Sho, who backed off a bit in surprise.

“I… well, you didn’t believe me anyways, no matter what I said!” he yelled back.

“Of course not, I thought you were bewitched and talking crazy stuff!”

“See? You wouldn’t have believed me!”

“Yeah, I still can’t believe what’s happening!” Nino freaked out.

“Alright, alright,” Ohno put his hands onto Nino's shoulder, “Can we all calm down now, please? Where is the problem now, Nino? Aiba’s love potion didn’t work and that means, Sho’s feelings were – even if a little exaggerated maybe – his true feelings. You should be happy now, right? You love him as well!”

“What?” Sho couldn’t believe what he heard right now and Nino froze.

“Are you crazy, blurting out the love confession of other people?!” Nino turned and hit Ohno's head who reached his hands up to hold the hit spot.

“But you wouldn’t be brave enough to say it on your own, right?” the half-vampire complained.

Nino crossed his arms again, deeply red and pouting, “Why do you know about this, anyways?”

“Come on Nino, it was obvious that you love Sho. Stop denying it,” his friend sighed, still holding his head.

“…,” Nino didn't answer anything to that and redirected his look towards Sho instead who was staring at him with big eyes.

“Is it true, Nino?” he asked surprised, “I thought you don’t like me because you rejected me…”

“He thought that your feelings were not real and that a relationship wouldn’t work like this,” Jun summarized everything.

“But now the misunderstanding is cleared, right?” Sho looked as Nino with big, awaiting eyes, “So…”

“Come on Sho, don't put me under such pressure! Maybe I’m shy, OK?” Nino turned even redder, if this was still possible but now he was unstoppable, “I’m not the hyper type like Aiba or like you when you think you were under a magic love spell. I don’t confess out loud that I love you in front of other people!”

“Uhm… actually, I would count this as a confession,” Ohno murmured and Nino stiffened.

“Get out! All of you, get out of here!” Nino still seemed angry but more than angry, he seemed to be just deeply embarrassed and Ohno chuckled when he got pushed out of Nino’s room.

Aiba and Jun had gotten pushed towards the door as well and even Sho had jumped up to leave in a hurry, fleeing from angry Nino.

“You stay!” Ohno pushed Sho back into Nino’s room, who just stared at him.

“Uhm… may I?” Sho asked Nino insecure, looking at him a bit shy.

Nino bit his lip and averted Sho’s eyes, too embarrassed about the whole situation but then he murmured, “Yeah, you may stay…”

Smiling happily, Sho slowly reached out his hand to Nino’s to squeeze it lovingly and it seemed like this was already enough for Nino to make him melt on an instant.

“Don’t do any dirty stuff to Nino, Sho, I warn you!” Aiba, who had been gulping down all of his pride and jealousy until yet yelled from the corridor and earned a smack from Ohno when Nino’s mother crossed them, carrying a laundry basket and a stunned look.

Nino just smiled at them embarrassed, made a small movement with his free hand and the door fell shut.

As soon as the door was closed, Sho pulled Nino into a tight hug.

“Oi, Sho - not so - strong!” Nino complained as he felt a bit too squeezed in Sho's embrace so the other let go of him and just smiled at him widely and Nino couldn't prevent from smiling happily either.

“I'm sorry, I'm just too happy about this outcome,” the taller boy admitted, “I can't believe that you like me as well, I'm so happy that I want to kiss you, may I?”

Nino blushed, “You're not supposed to ask, just do it, you idiot!”

And with that, Sho reached out one hand to put it into Nino's nape, pulling him closer and crashed their lips together, a bit clumsier and harsher than the last time because he was just too excited but Nino didn't complain at all and just responded to the kiss eagerly when he leaned in closer, finally melting in Sho's arms.

~*~*~

„Aiba? Are you OK?“ Jun asked his friend who was sighing deeply when they were riding their brooms through the nearby park on their way home, „You know, you’ll find someone else, there are more people outside in this world than only Nino.“

“Thank you Jun,” Aiba smiled at him, grateful for the try to cheer him up, “I know… Don't worry about me, I know, this was the right thing to do. I just hope we can go back to be normal friends soon, I hate it when he ignores me!”

“I guess, when things with Sho are settled and you stop stalking him completely, everything will be fine,” Ohno encouraged his friend.

“Yes. I have to take the defeat, right? I had no chance against Sho,” Aiba turned around, his broom floating in the air and his hair slightly tousled from the wind. He flashed a slightly sad smile at them, “After all, this was the magic of their love and not the love of magic,” he said in a serious voice.

Jun and Ohno stopped as well and just stared at him for a moment. Then, Jun sped up again, guiding his broom in a bow around Aiba. Ohno did the same, ignoring Aiba completely.

“You wanted to say this sappy sentence, didn’t you?” Jun chuckled when Aiba caught up to them again.

“Yes!” he admitted excitedly, “I practiced it in front of the mirror last night, isn’t it a really nice and deep sentence? It’s like the moral of this story, right?”

“You know, emphasizing this so obviously makes it totally kill the moralizing effect,” Ohno dropped and Aiba put on a small pout.

“By the way, Ohno…,” Aiba started then, “I wanted to ask you, why you are such a love expert? All that stuff of the hidden feelings and that psychological stuff... I was totally surprised! Are you hiding something from us?”

Ohno chuckled, “Ah, no no, nothing like that. It’s just, when I’m walking around in the parks every night, I often witness couples.”

“You're spying on love couples on your nightly walks through the park?” Jun chimed in from behind, frowning at Ohno with an astonished look.

“Well, no... if you call it like that...,” Ohno tried to search for other words.

“Sounds romantic…,” Aiba said, making a dreamy face.

“Sounds gross!” Jun stated, looking disgusted but got completely ignored by his friends.

“It’s kinda interesting though, you should come along once,” Ohno suggested to Aiba, whose face lit up from that.

Jun ruffled his hair, “You perverts!”

Aiba grinned at Ohno and teasingly let his finger curl on his friend's shoulder, “Is it possible that you’re inviting me on a date right now?”

“You’re really full of yourself, idiot!”

“I'm sorry.”

The End