Differential Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Sleeping Arrangements

The last place she expected to see Sasuke was in the library.

It was stupid really considering they both attended the same university and would both need to show up in the library at some point in the semester if not multiple times.

She just hadn’t expected to see him in the stacks at one in the morning.

She knew he was a night owl but she also knew he preferred the quiet of his room away from the rest of the world.

Away from her.

Sakura shuffled past him, pressing her notebook against her chest as if it would will the beating of her heart to quiet. Maybe he wouldn’t notice that she was there.

She could just hear Karin berating her for the missed opportunity.

There was something about the isolation of the stacks at this hour at night that made Sakura’s imagination run wild. And she had always had a rather vivid imagination.

How good the Sasuke of her imagination looked, with his eyebrows drawn down in frustration and glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. One hand covering his mouth to stifle his moans and the other buried in her hair as she took him in her mouth.

Sakura swallowed hard and rest her forehead against a row of books. Why did it have to be Sasuke that she thought about?

Sakura peered through the gap of space between the books and the next shelf up.

Sasuke was in the middle of turning a page of the book he had just pulled down. Sakura watched in fascination at the gentle cradle of the book. At the way his strong hands spread to hold the book comfortable, the muscles and veins clearly defined in the act.

We’re not here for that, she chided herself.

Sakura had planned to be asleep but Ino had invited the boy from Konoha Institute College of Art and so she escaped the dorm. Not even hiding out in the communal area of the suite was far away enough from the sounds being emitted.

If Karin’s roommate wasn’t so vile she would have taken the empty bed. Karin didn’t need it because she was out “tutoring” one of the KU swimmers for the past 3 days with no return. Even when she was in their dorm she didn’t sleep in her bed choosing to cuddle with either Ino or Sakura.

Anything to get away from her roommate.

Sakura would have complained earlier about the evening arrangements but she knew exactly what would happen.

Ino would just taunt her about her single status and how she would loosen up a little if she would only just go and get laid every once in a while. She would then bring it up to Karin later who would remind Sakura that she didn’t need a boyfriend in order to have sex.

But it wasn’t as if she were waiting to be in a relationship. Sakura had just ruined it for herself by building up all of her sexual fantasies surrounding a specific individual.

Sure she could go and experience it all in reality but none of it would ever top the daydream she was currently having of her neighbor using the same hand to hold his book to clamp over her mouth as she braced herself against the bookshelves and he panted in her ear.

“Fuck.”

Sakura clamped her hand over mouth. The word had slipped out and sounded breathier than she would have liked. She was at a dead end and had nowhere to hide, so when the sound of approaching footsteps got closer she hid her face in a book.

The clearing of a throat had her sliding the book down so she could peer over it.

Sasuke towered over her, arms crossed in front of his chest and frowning down at her through his glasses, an eyebrow raised.

Am I about to be punished?

The errant thought passed through her mind before she could reign it back.

God there’s something wrong with me.

“Why would you need a book on optoelectronics?”

“Opto-what?” Sakura frowned and took a better look at the book she had grabbed. She really grabbed a book irrelevant to what she was researching. She had been so distracted that she had walked into the wrong row.

“I don’t,” Sakura mumbled, sliding the book back in its place.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Huh?” Sakura blinked up at him. Sleep?

The end of the semester was approaching. On top of papers that were due, Sakura had exams to study for and she was the person that always overloaded her credits.

“I took a two hour nap on Thursday?”

“Go back to your dorm.”

Sakura snapped out of her daze at the order. It was said out of interest for her health but she couldn’t get over the bossy tone Sasuke used. How typical of him to tell her to do something he wouldn’t do himself.

“You go back to your dorm,” Sakura snarked back. She turned on her heel and walked into the proper section.

“How did you mistake a book for a microform?” Sasuke had followed her, ignoring the fact that she gave him attitude.

“I’m just a little tired.” Sakura refused to look at him, cheeks flushing with heat. She was more than a little tired. Which probably explained why it was so easy for her mind to drift off.

“Then go to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep on that couch.”

“Why would you be sleeping on the couch?”

“Ino,” Sakura replied with a sheepish grin. “She has a guest.”

Sasuke didn’t look very amused by her reason. He stared down at her long enough to make her uncomfortable. Sakura shifted her gaze away from him but she could still feel his eyes on her.

“Let’s go.”

Sakura almost dropped the envelope of microfiches she was absentmindedly rifling through. She wasn’t even completely sure what it was that she originally entered the stacks for.

“Go? Go where?”

Sasuke rolled his eyes and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Sakura’s eyes widened and she bit down on her lower lip.

It was a bad time to remember how much larger he was than her. His hand completely wrapped itself around her wrist.

He hadn’t always been so much taller than she was. Or his fingers so much larger. She recalled being thirteen and pressing her palm right up against his and comparing their sizes. They were always a perfect match but that year his fingers were marginally bigger, the tiniest sliver of flesh peeking around her slim fingers.

“To my dorm. So you can sleep.”

Tugging on her wrist, he gently led her past all of the rows and and up the few steps to the first floor of the library. Instead of dropping her wrist, he continued to lead her out into the crisp winter air.

There was nothing rough about how he held her but it remained firm and sure.

Like it always was.

---

“There’s nothing to cry about.”

Sakura sniffled, glaring through the tears welling up on her lower lash line. She could barely make out Sasuke’s blurry form.

With the force he used to yank on his hoodie sleeves he almost dragged Sakura towards him when he tied them around her waist. Sakura continued to sniffle as he made sure his sweater was secure and wouldn’t fall from around her slim hips.

Sakura was twelve and her menstrual cycle was unpredictable. Her mother had warned her about wearing white shorts but Ino had wanted to wear matching outfits for their field trip.

“I-I’m going to b-bleed on your hoodie,” her words came out a blubbering mess. She wiped at her eyes with the heels of her palms.

“It’s just clothes.” Sasuke took hold of her wrist and tugged her forward, away from her hiding spot in the dark corner of the planetarium. “Let’s go find Yamanaka. She should have found you a pad by now.”

Ignoring the wolf whistles of a few of their classmates and their jeering, he held onto her wrist in a gentle but firm hold. He guided her through the museum until he heard Ino’s shouting and calls for Sakura.

He walked with them to the restroom, never letting go until Ino took her inside.

---

Sakura closed the bathroom door behind her and peered into Sasuke’s room. He had handed her a change of clothes and directed her to the restroom where she could have some privacy as he cleared up space on his bed.

His half of his room was neat and in order and overall plain, completely different from the cluttered knick knacks she used to decorate the dorm room she shared with Ino. But then again Sasuke had taken over the communal area of his apartment style dorm.

“Fixing computers and laptops again?”

Sasuke was sitting on the edge of the couch, a laptop with it’s system board exposed on the coffee table. He was surrounded by different computer parts and a couple of laptops and system units with sticky notes on them.

“People are constantly breaking them and it costs a shit ton to get them fixed. For a small fee I can take a look and see what needs fixing and take care of it. I need the cash and they don’t need to waste their time getting ripped off.”

“These things make me feel like an idiot.” Sakura took a seat next to him and lifted up a circular disk. “What does this do?”

“It’s a cooling fan. It was working harder than it needed to.” Sasuke took the fan from her and clicked it into place. “The heatsink needed cleaning. If they took it into a repair shop they would have made them pay to replace the whole thing instead of just cleaning it out.”

“Heatsink?”

“Yeah. People don’t realize you gotta clean that out and then their laptop will overheat and shut down on them.”

Sakura watched as he screwed the cooling fan back in place and covered the motherboard up and screw everything shut.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping with me?

Sakura stood up abruptly, face burning from the embarrassment. Her brain really needed to stop producing all of those inappropriate thoughts.

“Um, but where are you going to sleep?”

“I won’t be. I have work to get done. And if I get tired I can always use my roommates bed. Not like he uses it.”

“Oh. Well, then. Good night!” Sakura awkwardly shuffled into his room and climbed onto his bed. She had a step stool to assist in climbing on her own bed but Sasuke was over half a foot taller than she was and had nothing like that.

She had to pull herself up and practically rolled the rest of the way on. Kicking the sheets around her she bundled herself up. It wasn’t until she pulled the blankets up to her chin that she noticed the crocheted throw Mikoto Uchiha had made for her son.

Warm…

Sakura buried her face into the sheets, the comforting smell of the familiar fabric softener the Uchiha family used relaxing her. It was the smell of Sasuke. The smell of home.

---

When Karin crawled into her bed she always dug her nose between Sakura’s shoulder blades. Sakura would whine when her bony knees pressed too hard against her legs but with some shuffling she could always adjust Karin’s hold on her.

That was usually the case except the arm around her waist was too muscular to be Karin’s thin arm and there was a pressure on top of her head instead of in between her shoulder blades.

Blinking open her eyes, Sakura was met with a blank wall instead of the blinds of her window.

This isn’t my bed!

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut tight and gathered her memories of the night before. She had been kicked out of her room by Ino and the guy from KICA. She went to the library where she ran into Sasuke. Where she ran into Sasuke!

Sakura exhaled a breath of relief as she recalled Sasuke dragging her back to his dorm so that she could finally get some sleep. She must have been more tired than she had thought if she hadn’t noticed Sasuke sneaking into his own bed.

Carefully, Sakura rolled onto her back and shifted so she could face him. There was a small grumble, a whine from the back of Sasuke’s throat but he didn’t open his eyes. He only relaxed his hold to give her more room to move.

Shit.

Sakura watched as Sasuke’s eyelashes fluttered delicately. The lashes on the lower line were slightly longer than the upper and they meshed together at the outer corners. Her eyes followed the path of his cheekbones to his well defined jaw. He really needed a shave.

Ew. Sakura wrinkled her nose and bit back a giggle. Morning breath.

A gurgle broke the even pattern of Sasuke’s breathing and his hand clutched the back of the shirt Sakura borrowed. Sakura let herself be pulled closer and Sasuke’s leg slid between her thighs. Sasuke settled his chin on top of her head again and his breathing returned to it’s normal steady pace, a content sigh falling from his lips.

Ah, crap.

Sakura sighed and pressed her face against Sasuke’s chest.

It was no use avoiding the reason why she couldn’t do what Karin had suggested to her and why Ino’s comments about denial bothered her so much.

But for now all she was going to do was sleep.