Cringing at the thought of the events that transpired the previous day and the things he had nonchalantly told him, he tapped his cell phone screen on and off, constantly checking the time. 

In less than five minutes, the lecture came to an end. Asahi hurried to the door and began scanning the herd of students that were leaving for lunch. And when he spotted a familiar head, he caught his arm and pulled him away from the crowd. 

Confused, Nao asked, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Nao - isn't it?" Asahi asked, smiling, trying his best to appear cheerful.

"It's Mitsui for you. And you haven't answered my question."

 Asahi winced. Nao wasn't hiding his hostility at all. In fact, his expression seemed to scream - 

Fuck off, you asshole.

"Right. Mitsui."  

Just do it.

"So I was wondering if we could go out for a drink or two, you know."

His look as deadpan as ever, Nao replied, "I don't understand." 

Unsure of what to say, Asahi stared at his face. It dawned to him that the conversation was going to be slightly harder than  he'd imagined. 

Who am I kidding? 

Asahi was a little too optimistic until a few minutes ago and had imagined the convo to go a whole lot smoother, even after getting a good idea of what Nao was actually like, the other day .

Strangely, what he saw, was what drew Asahi to Nao.

Yet here he was, expecting the latter to be nice to him, even after reading all the flags right.

"I'll be frank with you. I want to make up for what happened yesterday and it would be nice if you could go out with me for a few drinks or lunch or whatever."  

He paused to study Nao's expression. However, the poker face gave out nothing.

"Of course, it will be my treat." He quickly added.

"Oh, is that your roundabout way of apologizing for what you did yesterday? I'm sorry but I'm not interested." 

With this, Nao had delivered the final blow. Asahi watched as a smug smile grew on Nao's face, him basking in the pleasure of  embarassing the upperclassman whom he hates, probably a lot.

Fine. I know I deserve it. 

But bruh, can't you see how hard I'm trying?

"What's with you?" Asahi laughed in disbelief, looking away for a moment.

 "Your friend didn't seem to have a problem with it!" 

"Well, unlike him, I was forced to do all hundred and fifty push ups yesterday." The cool facade that Nao was trying hard to maintain was slightly breaking and Asahi could sense it. 

Cool. I can take this. I can handle angry.

"But that's because he fell down after seventy and was too tired to pick up after that." 

 Asahi wondered if he could elicit a stronger reaction from the cold guy. 

"Or are you saying that I should've forced him to continue?"

"That's not what I meant." Nao swore under his breath. 

"Forget it. And yeah, Akihiro told me earlier that you asked him the same thing this morning. He seemed cool with it so you guys can go ahead. I'll take my leave now, then."

Nao turned around and walked away, not bothering to wait for Asahi to reply, .

"Huh? "

This bastard.

Even as he felt a mixture of embarassment and annoyance, Asahi smiled. He knew this was going to be hard. 

But what the hell, he liked a good chase.