"You could do all of this in your sleep. Why don't you talk to the profes..."

"I don't think so. I have no interest in working with him, and he probably feels the same about me." Gendo didn't remove his eyes from the pile of notes he was going over.

"But that's not the point," Yui said, snatching them from his hands. "I mean, we all get along in a professional sense, but we're certainly not all friends." She shuffled through the notes until she found what she was looking for. "Here, quiz me."

Gendo sighed. "If you think I know this in my sleep, you could recite it when you're dead. Can't we take a break?"

"Two more chapters and then we can stop. What's the big deal? It's not like this is over your head."

Shrugging, Gendo said simply, "It's pretty easy. I don't know why you need to study so much."

"Remember? I'm a studying fiend." Yui poked him in the chest. "I think you would benefit from being a bit more... fiendish yourself."

Gendo looked up at her slowly. "You have... quite a way with words, Yui. You should be a little more careful."

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Because someone might take it the wrong way."

"Someone?"

"It could be me."

Yui shrugged. "Maybe I want you to take it the wrong way."

"Hmm. And what happened to all that talk about no funny business?"

"I didn't say never, did I?"

This time, Gendo pulled the notes from Yui's hands and dropped them to the floor. "I'm taking you out tonight, finals or no finals."

"But I..." Yui started to protest.

"You should have thought about that before you started your little word games. And since I _know_ you wouldn't want any of that funny business you're so fond of teasing me with, I'm going to take you out." As he figured, Yui didn't protest.

"Okay then. Where are we going?" she asked, smiling, though quickly added, "And it had better not be back to your place for pizza."

Gendo looked genuinely hurt, but Yui didn't believe it for a moment. "What happened to that whole trust thing? I really am trying to take into account how serious you are about class and all."

For a moment, Yui just looked at him. "You know, our moods don't agree often enough. I'm serious, you're silly... I want to relax, and you're a stick in the mud. We need to coordinate better," she said, wagging her finger at him.

"Fine. Then right now we need to agree to go out." Gendo stood and took Yui's hands. He hauled her to her feet and jerked her against him slightly. "I'm going to take you out," he repeated quietly, looking in her eyes, "and we're going to have fun."

One corner of Yui's mouth turned up and she nodded. "This won't work all the time with me."

"As long as it works now, I'm not going to worry about it. So let's go before you change your mind." Gendo pulled her toward the door, leaving their study materials all over the floor.

"Why are you forceful in a situation like this?" Yui asked, careful not to step on anything.

"Because it's for your own good, and you don't look after that enough." He opened the door. "So I'm going to watch it for you. And this is just a little something to eat. No harm."

"You need a haircut."

Gendo stopped and looked back at Yui, perplexed by her sudden change of subject.

"A haircut. Actually, it looks like you could use a weedwhacker on that mop of yours. And I bet with the shape of your face, you'd look really good in some smaller glasses."

The look Yui was giving him was enough to make him want to slink back to his room. "Are sure that's all that's wrong?"