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“A tutor?!” Sing Eucliffe, a 19 year old student with blond hair and blue eyes exclaimed as he looked on at his friend, Yukino Aguria, in disbelief. The girl shrugged, casually taking a sip of her cappuccino as she watched him smugly.
“Let’s face it Sting, I don’t think you’re going to pass the semester without one,” she stated bluntly. The boy winced and let his head fall to the table with a groan. The two students were sitting inside the coffee shop which was just located outside the uni they both attended; Fiore University.
“You’re so cruel Yukino, I’m doing perfectly fine,” he mumbled into the wood. The girl in question snorted,
“Your grades would say otherwise. Besides, I’ve already found someone who’s willing to help,” She explained, sympathetically giving his head a pat. Another loud and over exaggerated groan erupted from the young man’s mouth.
“It’s not cool to have a tutor,” he grumbled, looking up at her with a pout. “Well it’s even less cool to fail a subject,” she retorted. He sighed, sitting up straight and linking his arms behind his head.
“Well, she’d better be hot, whoever she is,” he said, a frown crossing his face.
“She’s a he,” Yukino replied in amusement, causing sting to pout again. With a quick glance at the watch on her wrist, she downed her drink and stood up from the table, shouldering her bag. “I’d better go; I’ve got a lecture in about ten minutes. He’ll meet you in the library after you have English today, you’d better be there or else,” she warned, waggling her finger before hurrying away quickly so that Sting couldn’t protest further.
A few hours later Sting found himself unwillingly on the way to the huge library on the other side of the campus. His hands were grumpily stuffed into the pockets of his white hoodie and a frown was plastered to his face as he huffily made his way inside the beginning. It soon dawned on him that he had no idea what the guy’s name was, let alone what he looked like. He smiled smugly to himself, about to turn around and go home, however a voice called from his right, preventing his escape.
“Are you Sting Eucliffe?” It asked. Sting turned to the stranger and looked him up and down. His messy black hair was tied in a loose pony tail atop his head and he wore a black t-shirt with navy jeans and black converse, contrary to the light clothes he himself was wearing. The most captivating thing Sting noticed was his scarlet red eyes; they seemed to draw him in as they stared at him questioningly. The boy cleared his throat, causing Sting to blink dumbly before his cheeks began to burn after realising that he’d been staring.
“Uh yeah, I am,” He replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. The boy gave him a small smile,
“Cool, Yukino told me you’d be hard to miss and I guess she was right,” he chuckled, indicating to the bright clothes and noticeable single crystal earring he was wearing.
“Typical Yukino, not enlightening me with all of the details on a real cutie such as yourself,” Sting said with a smirk, not really knowing what was coming over him. As far as he was concerned he'd been rather straight until this very moment. Now it was Rogue’s turn to blush, making the blonde's grin wider in triumph.
“Anyway, what’s your name? She never told me,”
“Rogue Cheney,” he answered.
“Rogue Cheney, huh?” Sting repeated. The named rolled off of his tongue; he liked it a lot.
“What kind of a name is Rogue?” he teased.
“Well what kind of a name is Sting?” Rogue countered, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow.
“Fair play,” Sting said with a grin.
“Anyway, we’re here to do English, are we not?” Rogue asked with a shake of his head.
“Don’t remind me,” Sting groaned. Over an hour later, Sting was going brain-dead while Rogue was almost pulling his hair out in frustration.
“No offence, but how have you managed to get this far into the course?!” Rogue asked irritably as Sting failed yet another of the same set of questions they’d been doing for the entire time.
“Don’t ask me,” Sting replied, his head lying on the desk as he gazed up at the look of concentration on Rogue’s face.
“I think we’re gonna have to call it a day, we’re not getting anywhere,” the raven haired boy finally said, leaning back in his chair and looking at his ‘student’ in exasperation.
“The first thing we’re going to need to sort out is the sentence structure; it’s atrocious! You say you’ve been learning English since junior school, but…”
“I know, I know, I’m a hopeless case,” Sting said dejectedly, “You can just give up if you want,”
“Who said anything about giving up?” Rogue asked with a frown,“I certainly cannot leave you in this state!” Sting gave him a toothy grin; he had a strange urge to hug him now but knew it wouldn’t be the best thing to do considering they’d met a mere hour ago. After exchanging phone numbers, Rogue explained that he had to go, and so Sting watched him make his way out of the building, scruffy hair bobbing behind him. The moment he was out of sight, Sting snatched up his phone and dialled Yukino’s number.
“How’d it go?” She immediately asked from the other side. “I think we have a problem, and not in the way you may think…” he began, a goofy grin plastered to his face as he stared in the direction the other boy had just left in.
The weeks soon turned into months, and the two boys became closer and closer. They texted regularly and eventually began to meet up to hang out, not just study. They began learning more and more about each other and they soon became inseparable.
“I can’t believe we have finals next week,” String said from his place on the floor, leaning back against Rogue’s legs as the raven haired teen was sitting up on the sofa, a book in hand. His only reply was a simple ‘hmm’ which was all the blonde expected as the boy had been emersed in the novel for some time. Sting absentmindedly stroked the two cats sitting upon his lap. Lector, who was his red, scruffy cat and Frosch, who was Rogue’s little green one. Sting liked days like this; the atmosphere was calm and he could be as close to Rogue as possible. Rain from outside pattered on the windows of his apartment but he didn’t mind one bit, it merely contributed to the nice mood.
“Oh, I know!” He yelled out suddenly, startling both the cats and Rogue.
“What is it?” Rogue asked, an irritated edge to his voice as he too was enjoying the previously peaceful atmosphere.
“We should watch a movie!” The blonde exclaimed, jumping up and running out of the main room. Rogue sighed and shook his head, yet an affectionate smile twitched at his lips none the less. Sting was soon back, bundled up in a big, fluffy blanket. Rogue chuckled, moving up and allowing his friend to sit down on the sofa. “You can choose what we watch, oh and you’ve gotta grab the popcorn as well,” Sting told his friend. Rogue rolled his eyes but did as he was told anyway. It only took him a second to grab the popcorn as he practically lived at Sting’s house and the movie he chose was his favourite; The Ring.
Rogue gazed down at his lap after the movie had finished. Sting’s sleeping face was turned towards him, and Rogue couldn’t help but admire how adorable he looked in that moment. Unable the resist the urge; he gently brushed away a strand of his friend’s silky blonde hair, running his hand through the rest as he did so. A content smile appeared on Sting’s face, causing Rogue to chuckle. The scarlet eyed boy gently removed his sleeping friend from his lap and got up to let himself out of the house, but not before gently draping the blanket across his napping form and collecting his cat.
Sting nervously waited behind the crowd of students from his English class as they all examined the scores of the final text. There was a chorus of both noises of joy and despair, one specifically loud one coming from a pinkette names Natsu Dragneel.
“I can’t believe it!” He wailed to his ‘friend’ (or so they called themselves, however everyone knew they were both in denial) Lucy Heartfilia. “Only 26 percent!” He cried, clinging onto her shoulders and shaking the poor girl mercilessly.
“Maybe if you’d actually studied when I told you to, this would never have happened!” She scolded, giving him a slap upside the head.
“Ouch, that hurt Luce,” he complained, letting go of her and clutching the back of his head with a pout. “Serves you right,” she said with a shake of her head. It was soon Sting’s turn to get his score and to say he was nervous would be an understatement. If he got anything below 70 percent he’d have failed the course and would have to start from the beginning. Not to mention the cost would be horrendous…
“Sting Eucliffe, Sting Eucliffe…” he muttered to himself, his eyes scanning the papers on the board just outside his classroom. His eyes narrowed when he spied his name and slowly drifted over towards his score. 73% was what was written there. He blinked a couple of times, making sure that he wasn’t mistaking the score for someone else’s. “I did it!” He yelled, pumping his fist into the air dramatically. “Hah Natsu, I told you I’d do it!” He called, giving the pinkette the biggest victory smirk he could muster. You see, the two had taken bets near the beginning of the year, each teen claiming that they would be the one to pass 50% on one of the English exams first.
“What?!” Natsu exclaimed, seemingly outraged. “You obviously cheated!”
“In your dreams, salmon head! I’m just too good for you!” Sting taunted. “You owe me fifty!”
“Like hell I do! You wanna go?! Who’s your tutor, I’m taking him from you!” The pinkette cried.
“Hey, you stay away from Rogue!” Sting spat, surprising even himself with the harshness of his tone.
“Now now you two…” Lucy muttered, looking between Natsu and Sting.
“What’s going on over here?!” A voice, obviously belonging to the notorious Erza Scarlet bellowed from down the hall.
“I’ll now be taking my leave,” Sting said with a grin, dashing down the hall and leaving a slightly terrified Natsu alone with Erza's wrath in his wake.
Once he’d got off the campus grounds, Sting grinned a victorious grin and turned back to face the way he’d come, raising his arm and sticking up his middle finger.
“Take that, assholes!” He yelled, ignoring the disgusted looks he was receiving for the profanities. He then took out his phone, texting Yukino his results and deciding against telling Rogue yet as he wanted to say in person.
Rogue groaned as he turned towards the door of his apartment, giving it a dirty look as he did so; he was in the middle of an especially dramatic chapter and did not want to put his book down. The violent thumps on his door however did not cease and he sighed in frustration before getting up and trudging towards the door.
“What is-” he began, however was stoped mid-sentence as Sting threw himself upon the poor, unsuspecting boy and knocked him to the ground. He groaned as his head smacked onto the wooden floor, however Sting ignored it. He was too busy squeezing the life out of his friend, laughing heartily as he did so.
“What is it Sting?” Rogue asked, a slight sharpness to his voice as he glared down at the head of blonde, spiky hair as the boy proceeded to nuzzle himself into the crook of Rogue’s neck. At that moment, Sting sat up, still pinning Rogue down as he straddled his stomach.
“I got 73 percent!” He practically yelled, his grin spanning from ear to ear with seemingly the brightness of the sun. Rogue’s expression softened at this and his lips twitched into a small smile.
“I knew you could do it, I’m proud of you, Sting,” he said, propping himself up slightly on his elbows.
“I legitimately want to kiss you right now,” Sting laughed obliviously. After a while, he began to register the look of shock on Rogue’s face, and the words which had tumbled out of his lips without a second thought sunk in. His eyes widened and he brought a hand to his mouth. Both of their faces were cherry red, and it seemed as if they’d only just realised the embarrassing position they were in. Having the front door open was not helping at all either.
“Uh, I mean… I um,” Sting stuttered, quick to scramble off of the other teen and sit back on his knees, looking down into his lap in embarrassment. Rogue said nothing and merely got up to close the door. He stood there for a while, still in complete shock. Sting gingerly peeked over at his friend, unable to see his face as his back was turned to him. “…Rogue?” He asked quietly after a few moments. “Just… just pretend I never said that.” Rogue seemed to stiffen at those words, and he turned towards his friend, still bright red in the face. He began to march forward, his expression unreadable as he knelt down to be level with Sting. He seemed to be debating with himself inside his head, and Sting couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Sting, look at me,” he muttered eventually, his voice only just audible. Sting obeyed, and not a second later did Rogue’s lips find themselves to his own. The blonde let out a muffled noise of surprise, his sapphire eyes widening as Rogue’s scarlet ones closed. He soon responded, melting into the kiss as his arms automatically found their way around Rogue’s neck, pulling him in slightly closer.
They eventually broke away, both breathing heavily and extremely red in the face.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a while now,” Rogue admitted shyly, causing a cocky grin to appear on Sting’s face.
“But of course, what’s not to like about me?” He asked arrogantly, earning a small shove from Rogue.
“Don’t get too full of yourself now,” he teased, grinning in return.
“I can’t believe you’d think I, of all people, would get too full of myself!” Sting gasped in mock offence, causing Rogue to snort in return.
Around an hour later the boys were both sitting on the sofa, lying against each other with their hands entwined in content.
“You know, Natsu says he’s gonna take you from me,” Sting whined after a while of silence, snuggling further into his boyfriend’s neck.
“Does he now?” Rogue asked in amusement, “You better watch out then Sting,” Rogue said with a chuckle as Sting let out a ‘humph’.
“No way, you’re my tutor!” He stated bluntly.
“And yet Yukino tells me you didn’t want one,” Rogue teased.
“Shut up!” Sting grumbled with a pout.
“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on going anywhere, I’ll always be here cause you’d be pretty helpless without me,” the ruby eyed boy whispered, planting a chastise kiss on the other’s cheek.
“Yeah, that’s true,” Sting mumbled back, enjoying just basking in the other's warmth.