She kicked him lightly under the table; it hit a weird bone in his leg that made everything tingle in a not-so-pleasant way. Sasuke looked up from the bookmarked page and glared at her, but she looked back at him, unfazed.
That was probably the only thing he disliked about their newfound friendship.
Sure, after the Valentine’s fiasco, they started spending more time together. They were actually in the friends category now, going over each other’s place every day, if not every other day (which allowed him basically unlimited time to oggle her legs and breasts and eye crinkles), but now she was used to his glares and threats and tch’s. How was he ever going to effectively shut her up or satisfy his mean streak now?
Ah, yes.
“Ow! Asshole, you kicked me way harder!”
Sometimes, childish was the only way to go.
“Fine, don’t come over,” she muttered. “See if I fucking care.”
Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out another notebook, searching for the last set of notes he had written and wondering why he didn’t just label everything instead of trying to mentally assign colors to classes.
“I have two tests on Thursday,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, and that’s in two days,” she said nonchalantly, waving her hand as though she was dismissing an easily ignorable subject. “You’ve got plenty of time.”
He paused in his search to stare at her with a twitching eye.
“Oh, come on, you’ve been studying all of this for a week and a half! You cancelled horror movie night! We didn’t get to do our potluck dinner!”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Ugh, you disgust me.”
But she smiled at him in amusement when he massaged the bridge of his nose in reply.
“Just bring your study materials over. Or don’t — you live right next door, dude,” she continued.
It wasn’t that Sasuke was particularly nervous about his exams or that he hadn’t prepped enough. After all, there was no exaggeration to [Name]’s words; he had been studying for the last week and a half, non-stop. Every spare moment was spent looking over his class notes or scanning the highlighted portions of his textbook, or even rereading chapters and taking new notes. But that was the type of person Sasuke was: he liked to be very thorough.
“Come on.”
He sighed. A night at her place wouldn’t mean the end of his college career, he supposed.
“Fine,” he finally said, and she punched the air and whooped in victory.
The rest of the hour was spent in silent studying: [Name] bobbed her head in time to her music as she read her literature, occasionally taking notes on the plot’s events, and Sasuke restarted chapter seventeen’s notes. When [Name] looked up from her reading, she saw that they used up the allotted time they had for the library room, and the two of them packed up their things and left.
“Awesome,” [Name] said as they returned the key to the library’s studying room to the front office. “I bought two new movies, and I’ve got my weird pasta leftovers, and my jammies are all clean and ready to be worn — aggh, I can’t wait.”
She grinned at him and he rolled his eyes, but he still couldn’t help the small grin forming at the edge of his lips. Her excitement was contagious.
They drove home separately; [Name] had arrived first. He could hear her shuffling in her apartment next door as he entered his own. He changed quickly into a t-shirt and sweat pants, and though a part of him said it’d be okay to leave his studying books at home, he still over-packed his backpack and brought it over.
He locked his apartment door behind him — always thorough.
Of course, [Name]’s was unlocked, and it wasn’t because she knew he was coming over; it was almost always unlocked, especially when she was home.
“Oy,” he yelled irritably as he entered. “What have I told you about locking the damn door?”
She twisted her body around on the sectional and peered at him from behind thick, blue cushions.
“Uh...” She paused. “To do it?”
“Yeah,” he said, “so do it.”
She grinned cheekily.
Sasuke dumped his belongings on the rug, beneath the coffee table, and sat beside her. She had selfishly taken up the chaise part, but that meant he got dibs on the body pillow.
When he looked over at the kitchen, he saw a vase of dying roses.
“[Name] — ”
“Don’t ask; too lazy.”
Of course.
He turned his attention to the scene in front of him. In the time it had taken him to park his car, walk upstairs, and change clothes, she had already changed into her giant t-shirt and shorts, popped in popcorn and cookies, poured sweet tea in two cups, and tuned into a TV show on Netflix.
If she’d just apply herself like that to all her classes...
As he settled into the couch, [Name] started a sci-fi show called Firefly.
“I thought we were watching a horror movie,” he said.
“We were,” she replied, “but Ten-Ten told me this was a really good show. She’s, like, obsessed with it, so I figured what better time to start it than now with my best buddy?”
“I came over for horror movies.”
“Shut up and eat your popcorn.”
Sasuke sighed loudly, inwardly smiling when he saw her glare at him with a twitching eye; he pulled the bowl of popcorn off the coffee table and placed it in between them. Some five minutes later, [Name] got up to get the cookies out of the oven and turn off the lights; minutes after that they sank into the couch, its oversized, too-comfortable cushions trying to absorb them away from reality.
By the end of the (surprisingly good) first episode, they were touching head to head, taking turns picking out of the green bowl.
He tried not to think about it and kept his eyes steady on the screen.
“Not bad,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s actually pretty funny,” she agreed. He saw her glance at him, and then she snorted. “You’ve got crumbs on your face, stupid-head.”
Sasuke didn’t respond; there wasn’t much to say to that, but he didn’t bother trying to wipe it off. He was still eating after all, but [Name] seemed to have other ideas, as she reached forward to try and brush them off his cheek; her fingers touched too close to his lips.
He imagined grabbing her hand and holding it against his face.
He imagined kissing her.
Interrupting his thoughts, she beamed brightly like a dork and then proceeded to lick the crumbs clean off her fingers.
Any romantic, cute scene he could think of was quickly shattered.
“You’re a fucking slob.”
There was a reason he liked her, hidden beneath her oddity, her quirks, right? He wasn’t crazy, right? Or maybe he actually liked the quirks... He shuddered.
“Least you’re clean now,” she said, and then she quickly turned back to the screen. “Shh! Next episode!”
Sasuke turned his attention to the show, but couldn’t help looking at her.
“[Name] —”
