<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">Ryuu had paid dearly for his little burst of speed, chest burning like fire as it heaved up and down, fighting to breathe normally. He wasn’t paying attention to his friend as he spoke, leaning against the doorframe to their classroom as he willed his lungs to go back to normal and <em>work</em> properly. He felt dizzy, and thought that he might actually throw up. He never should have run like that, not when he was overweight, and out of shape, and didn’t even have a real reason to do it in the first place! Who would have cared if Ito reached the door before him?<br/><br/>“I…” His breath caught again, causing him to cough as he made a fist and banged it on his chest. Not that it would make much of a difference, shy of maybe making his breathing worse. “Give… it… to… him. If he’s… so upset.” He said, as he finally realized he was talking about the speedo still. Was that his voice coming out so hoarse?<br/><br/>A few more coughs, and a few more bangs, and then he heard a female voice speaking to him. A novel occasion, as it so happened.<br/><br/>“No.” He answered, before his oxygen-starved brain caught up with his mouth and he realized he was being incredibly rude. “I mean, I’m terribly sorry, Takada-san, but I can’t. I still need to focus on my own studies. Medical schools have a separate exam to determine placement.” Plus, calling someone ‘you,’ and completely ignoring them before you needed them was never the way to earn a favor. Especially not someone who wasn’t afraid to say no and ignore social necessities like Ryuu. On top of that, it was time-consuming and rather presumptuous to expect a virtual stranger to pick up one’s academic slack. Maybe it was lack of sleep and general crankiness talking here, but Ryuu rather thought she could have done better if she had spent less time on her flawless appearance and more time actually working. <br/><br/>Takada-san stared at him in shock, as if she had never seen him before. Perhaps she hadn't, since they had been classmates for almost four years and she still didn't know his name. She clearly had no idea what to say, mouth opening and closing before she just gave a helpless little shrug, accompanied by a nod. Ryuu blamed her for the awkward silence that followed. It was bad manners to ask for a favor like that, especially in front of others where it would look even worse if he said no.<br/><br/>“C’mon, Ito. I need to sit down.” With that, he moved past her, and everyone staring at him as if he had grown two heads and found his seat in the back row. Even the teacher seemed to look at him strangely during roll call, as if he had done something unheard of by refusing the Queen of the Classroom. “They’re going to give me hell later, aren’t they?” He wondered, glancing in Ito’s direction as he flipped through his textbook to the exercises they were about to begin. Then he had another thought, and frowned, scrawling out a note on the corner of his notebook and angling it so Ito could see, since the teacher had finished the attendance roster and jumped right into the lesson, chalk making a pleasant tapping sound on the board as he wrote out work for them to do.<br/><br/><em>'You're not mad at me, are you? We already don't have much time together. And I really don't want to tutor her.'</em><br/></span>