#samekeychain

“Eh, who cares?” Kuwata mumbled, throwing his own lab notes(crumpled into a ball) up in the air, “Just wing it. Not like we’re gonnaactually use this crap in the future, right?”

Makoto frowned, wincing as Kuwata threw his ball of paperand hit Oowada, of all people, on theback of the head. Luckily enough for him, Oowada was too busy arguing with his lab partner, who happened to beIshimaru. Makoto was starting to think that the teacher’s decision to randomlypartner everyone up was a huge mistake, especially as Oowada and Ishimarulooked about two seconds away from throttling each other.

Makoto sighed, picking up his paper and trying to decipherit. He heard a smashing noise in the distance, and hoped to god that Ishimaruand Oowada hadn’t resorted to throwing lab equipment at each other.

“How much longer d’ya reckon it’s gonna be before they killeach other?” Kuwata asked, flicking an empty beaker idly.

“Hopefully, they won’t...”

“You’re no fun, c’mon! Loosen up a little,” Kuwatacomplained, flicking the beaker hard enough it fell off the table andshattered, “Whoops.”

“Kuwata-kun!” the Nishimura-sensei snapped, looking up fromher book, “Clean that mess up at once! Don’t you know how dangerous brokenglass is?!”

Kuwata choked on his words for a few seconds, eyesflickering between Ishimaru and Mondo (the latter of which was attempting topunch the former) and the teacher.

“You can’t be serious,” Kuwata deadpanned. Nishimura-senseiscowled at him.

“That’s it! Detention for you, Kuwata! I won’t stand for anymisconduct in my classroom.”

Makoto couldn’t help but sniggerslightly at the baffled expression on Kuwata’s face. He looked like he’d justbeen punched in the gut, and kept gesturing wildly over at the bickering pairof students. Nishimura-sensei ignored his non-verbal protests, and stared downat her book again.

“This is bullshit, man!” Kuwata moaned, sweeping up theglass shards from the floor. It was 5 minutes after class had ended, and Makotocouldn’t help but silently agree. Ishimaru had ended up storming off to go tothe nurse’s office after Oowada had nearly smashed his face in, and Kuwata was the person who got punished?!

“Are you sure you didn’t do something else to make her angry?Maybe she heard you complaining that you’d ‘never use this in the future’, orsomething…”

“That’s ‘cause it’s true! You think rockstars like me spendtheir entire day thinking about if Iodine forms a convoluted bond with Hydrogenor whatever?!”

“It’s a covalent bond,actually…” Makoto mumbled, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, “Have youbeen handing in your homework and everything?”

“Nah. Like I said, not gonna need this shit!”

Suddenly, Nishimura-sensei’s seemingly unfair treatment ofKuwata was starting to make more and more sense… Makoto knelt down next to Kuwata,pointing out a couple shards that he missed.

“Well, maybe you should! It’d at least make her treat youmore fairly… next time she’ll probably give Oowada a detention before he ends up breaking Ishimaru’snose, instead of focusing on you...”

Kuwata rolled his eyes, standing up and dumping the shardsof glass in the trash.

“If I spend time doing homework and shit, I won’t haveenough time to play my guitar! Which is something that’s actually going to be useful to me in the future, y’know?”

Makoto blinked in surprise. He didn’t know that Kuwataactually owned a guitar, let alone one he was willing to actually dedicatepractise time to.

“I thought you just did vocals?” Makoto asked, “When’d youget a guitar?”

“I snagged one at a yard sale,” Kuwata explained, grinning, “Imean, I suck at it, but that’s why I gotta spend so much time trying to playit! I’m not gonna get any girls if I sound like shit, am I? Besides, playingguitar is like, twelve times cooler than just singing.”

Makoto nodded, not really understanding Kuwata’s logic (wasn’tbeing a famous baseball star enough to get girls anyway?), but appreciatingthat he was finally growing up a little and learning to practise at something.Not that Makoto could really judge- he hardly had any hobbies of his ownbesides watching TV and doodling a little bit when he was bored.

“You should come hear me play it sometime!” Kuwatacontinued, “I mean, when I don’t sound like shit, y’know… I’ll make sure topractise extra hard and stuff as well! Now I gotta run, I promised to meetHagakure-kun at lunch time- he promised to give me one of his stupid romancereadings ‘cause I helped him find that shitty crystal ball of his.”

Before Makoto could say goodbye,Kuwata was running down the halls, evidently milking as much freedom as hecould while Ishimaru was holed up in the nurse’s office.

Makoto sighed, fiddling with another beaker. The last week had been a mess- and his chemistry classes wereprobably to blame. For some reason, ever after the Glass Shattering Incident,Kuwata had been avoiding Makoto. He was still his assigned lab partner, but hewould freak out whenever Makoto tried to talk to him. This weird behaviour wassecond only to the even weirder behaviourof Ishimaru and Oowada- one day they’d gone from threatening to kill eachother, to best friends in the whole world. It was creeping everyone out.

“Hey, Kuwata-kun, could you hand me the sulphur?” Makotoasked, nose practically touching the instructions to make out the text. Who inthe world seriously wrote instructions in a 5point font?! Maybe he just needed glasses… Makoto looked over to the pairnext to him, Oogami and Asahina (how’d they luck out on the random partnershipthing?!), and they looked to have a similar difficulty reading it, so itprobably wasn’t that…

A couple minutes passed before Makoto realised that Kuwatahad never passed him the sulphur. He glanced over to his partner, who wasstaring out of the window, rolling a test tube underneath his fingers. Makototapped him on the shoulder, causing him to jump slightly, and send the testtube rolling off the table. Makoto winced in sympathy as he heard it shatter,Nishimura’s book slamming onto her desk a second later.

“Leon Kuwata, this is the 3rd time you havebroken something in my classroom!” she roared, “You’re lucky I don’t fail youon the spot!”

“Uh, actually?” Makoto piped up, his caring nature gettingthe better of him, “I was the one who broke it, not Kuwata-kun.” Makoto feltbad about lying, but it was technicallyhis fault, and he didn’t think that Kuwata could handle another detention.

“I… see…” Nishimura-sensei mumbled, sounding slightlyunconvinced, “Well then. Sweep it up, Naegi-kun.”

“Will do, Nishimura-sensei. I apologise for breaking it…”Makoto grabbed the dustpan and began sweeping the glass up. Kuwata stared downat him in bemusement, a faint blush darkening the tips of his ears.

“Uh, Kuwata-kun?” Makoto asked, “Could you add the sulphurwhile I sweep this up?” Makoto asked, just as the bell rang. He sighed, dumpingthe glass in the bin, while the rest of the class filtered out. Was it evergoing to be possible to finish at least oneproject in this class?!

“Uh, Naegi-kun?” Kuwata  asked, as Makoto was heading to leave theroom, “You got a sec?”

“Hey, if this is about the test tube thing, I just didn’twant Nishimura-sensei to crucify you-“ Makoto began, but was cut off by Kuwata’s(rather flustered) question.

“Are you doin’ all this nice shit for me because you have acrush on me?”

“W-what?!” Makoto gasped, shocked to his core. Kuwatathought he had a crush on him?! Was that why he’d been acting so weird aroundhim?! It certainly explained why he kept blushingwhenever Makoto looked at him… but why? Makoto hadn’t flirted with Kuwata or anything…

“Hagakure-kun told me you had a crush on me, alright?!”Kuwata snapped, face almost as red as his hair, “I was just askin’ if it was trueor not!”

Oh. That explained it.

“Uh, Kuwata-kun, you know that Hagakure-kun is only right 30% of the time, right…?”

“Yeah, exactly! That’s like, super accurate, right?”

“It also means he’s wrong 70% of the time. This is one of those times, uh…” Makoto awkwardlyscratched the side of his face, and Kuwata smacked his forehead with the palmof his hand.

“Duh! I’m a fuckin’ dumbass!” he yelled, dragging the handdown his face. He sounded sort of… disappointed? Wait… did Kuwata have a crush on Makoto?!Was that why he’d been so excitedto show Makoto his guitar skills? The thought was simultaneously weird andflattering.

“I mean, no offense! You’re a great guy, Kuwata-kun… but Ijust don’t have those feelings for you. Or, at least I’ve never thought aboutit…”

“Yeah, no, I get it,” Kuwata mumbled, heading towards thedoor, “I get it. I’m gonna give Hagakure-kun shit for not giving me an accuratereading, though!”

And then he was gone.

Him having a crushon Kuwata, huh… that was a weirdthought. Makoto tried to imagine dating him- going out to watch Kuwata’s games,cheering him on from the sidelines, going to a restaurant afterwards and  watching Kuwata fiddle with his chopsticks ashe told Makoto about his latest crazy idea to make it big in the music world…the two of them holding hands, sneaking kisses after school, making out in one of their dorms…

Oh no. That actually sounded appealing… did Makoto have a secret crush on Kuwata after all?Secret even from himself?!  Hagakure must have been a better fortuneteller than Makoto gave him credit for…