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It had taken over an hour to dawn on Yoko that she would have some explaining to do if anyone from her school saw her talking to a giant stag beetle robot in the forest.
On one hand, her classmates thought she was weird enough already. On the other, J had been her friend first, and he made a reliable (if somewhat uncomfortable) pillow when she was trying to concentrate on her books. She smiled at him, just as he pulled her up sharply by her hair – “Argh! What are you doing?”
“I, Beet J Stag, am the best at braiding hair.”
Of course he was, “We did that hours ago. You’re bored, aren’t you?” she said.
He stared back at her. Yoko patted his arm, “Sorry, J. I have to study.”
“The Battle of Tsushima was fought between 27-28 May, 1905,” said J.
“That’s right.” At least, she thought it was. She had dozens of EMC’s technical specs memorised down to the last serial number and yet anything to do with historical dates made her head hurt.
“There is nothing I do not know.”
“There are lots of things I don’t know. C’mon. Help me go over this,” said Yoko.
She settled against him and began reading from the chapter, trying to encourage him to ask her quiz questions. J had, to his credit, a near-perfect memory for almost everything they had read through together. It took some time for him to grasp the concept that he was supposed to ask Yoko questions from the book, rather than the reverse; but an hour or so later she felt like she was making a bit more progress with the material.
“I guess that’s enough for today. Thanks, J,” said Yoko. She reached up to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.
He lifted his fingers to the spot that had come into contact with her lips, “What are you doing?”
“Saying thank you? You helped me. I really need to do well in this final, and everyone else is busy.” She wrinkled her nose at that thougt. Ryuuji had some kind of important deadline coming up at work and Hiromu had quite bluntly told her he would rather go out with Nick than study with her.
J opened his mouth. He breathed, as if there were something on the tip of his tongue to say, yet whatever it was didn’t seem forthcoming. His gaze lowered towards the black block hanging around his neck before he finally said “I’m proud of you.”
“Yeah?”
Yoko was thankful that he chose that moment to break into a chorus of “I love myself! I am Ju-Ju-Juicy!” or her reply might have come out a little more slushy than she’d like.