Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.

Hello! So...I decided to try out another HaruMaru fanfic. This pairing is taking over my brain. I swear! I think only about HaruMaru. Heck, I DREAM about them! (Not that I hate it, but...) So yeah...decided to just write this...

This is an AU fanfic - the characters are about 18 years old. Set in University - 18 is the age where we leave high school and enter University in Australia, so...I'll just leave it as that...

Anyways, enjoy~


Awkward Beginnings: Chapter 1

"Hey."

Marui looked up from his messily arranged desk. A male, who seemed to be of the same age as the red head himself, was standing beside his desk. The silver haired male had a lazy posture, hands casually shoved into his black skinny jeans' pockets, his head had a slight tilt as his blue eyes focused on the red head.

"Is this seat free?" The silver head asked, slightly lifting up his chin to gesture to the seat beside Marui's own seat, which Marui was using to place his bag. His blue eyes quickly flickered back to Marui as he waited for an answer.

"Um…" Marui frantically dropped the pen that he was holding onto the desk, letting it roll off somewhere. He pushed his chair backwards with a loud 'squeak', turned to the chair with his bag on it and grabbed his bag off it. It would seem like an easy job, unfortunately for Marui, his bad luck caused his bag's strap to get caught onto the chair. When he yanked his bag off, due to the caught strap, the chair scrapped along the floor towards Marui and hit him hard on the knee.

Marui bit his bottom lip, hard, so hard that he could taste blood, as he resisted the urge to scream. He was in a lecture hall, and screaming would only cause a huge disruption and Marui was sure that the lecturer would not be pleased about it.

Marui glanced at the silver haired male without lifting his head up, trying to see the stranger's reaction. Strangely, the silver head had no reaction at all, or even if he did, Marui did not notice it. He was still in the same position, the same lazy posture and was waiting patiently for Marui to finish doing his…stuff.

Marui used his shaky fingers to get his bag strap free. It might have only taken a few seconds, but to Marui, who felt pressure under the gaze of a stranger, it felt like millions of years. When he had finally released it without further accidents, Marui sheepishly placed his bag down onto the floor on the other side of him, and said, "Yeah, it's free."

He could feel his cheeks get hot. 'Argh! I'm so stupid!' He thought as he heard shuffling of shoes against the floor, indicating that the silver head was in the process of sitting down onto the seat.

Marui couldn't believe that he had managed to embarrass himself in front of someone whom he didn't know. Embarrass himself by not being able to do a simple task without any accidents! Even though the silver head had not made any comments about it, and was silent throughout, not even a judging gaze, Marui still felt that the stranger was thinking about how much of a clutz he was.

Remembering about his discarded pen, Marui searched through the piles of messily placed sheets of papers, when he realised that the male beside him was simply staring at the desk, unmoving. Marui felt the familiar shape of his pen and grabbed it, before turning to look at his side, wondering why the silver head wasn't doing anything.

His eyes followed the silver head's gaze and Marui nearly facepalmed himself.

Of course!

Marui inwardly groaned. How could he have been so stupid?

The desk!

The desk was covered with Marui's sheets of papers and the silver head had no space to put any of his own stuff.

"I'm so sorry." Marui mumbled under his breath as he hurriedly tried to gather the sheets of paper into a nice neat pile, away from the stranger's side of the table.

Marui heard a soft chuckle. He paused in his actions, tilting his head to look at the silver head. The silver haired male was laughing, eyes twinkling with amusement. Marui felt a blush creep up his face.

"It's okay." Came the deep voice from the silver head, his blue eyes now fixed onto Marui's face. Marui was certain that his cheeks were the same colour as his red hair at that moment, and broke eye contact, turning to focus on his task of arranging the papers.

Marui eventually managed to arrange his papers neatly, and out of the silver head's way. Marui watched the stranger from the corner of his eye, watched him slowly place his black and white sling bag down onto the floor, take a silver pencil case out of said bag and onto the cleared desk.

Marui ignored the lecture and continued to watch as the silver head dug through his bag for something, only to give up and tap his mechanical pencil on the wooden desk.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The rhythmic sounds of the tapping pencil reminded Marui of something, but he couldn't place a finger onto it.

Marui forced his attention back onto the lecturer when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He shifted his gaze back onto the silver head.

"Do you have any spare paper?"

Marui blinked slowly.

Once.

Twice.

Paper. He let the words process in his brain before nodding his head vigorously, causing the silver head to softly chuckle again.

Marui handed him a few sheets of paper and the silver head took it with a soft, "Thanks."

Marui looked back to the front. The lecture was boring him. He allowed his eyes to shut as he rested his head on his palms. He could hear the lecturer's monotonous tone drone on and on in the background.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

There came the tapping sounds of the silver head's pencil hitting the desk again. Marui tilted his head so that he was facing his companion. Opening his eyes, he noticed that his companion was as bored as him, eyes unfocused, probably thinking of something else.

"Hey." Marui unintentionally said, only to place a hand over his mouth when he realised that he had spoken.

'Crap. What did I do?'

Marui wasn't one to strike up a conversation first. He'd normally wait for people to speak to him before answering. Whatever made him speak to this stranger first?

While Marui was inwardly panicking, the silver head glanced down at him, his blue eyes questioning.

'Shit! He heard me. Of course he did idiot. What did you think he was. Deaf? Oh my god, what do I say?' Marui's mind was a mess, as he struggled to think of something to say.

"'Sup?" He ended up saying, only to use one hand to hide his embarrassed face.

'Sup? Of all things, I say sup?'

"Normal people would say 'the ceiling' in this situation, but since that's too mainstream, I'll settle with the lecturer killing my brain cells with his monotonous droning." The silver head replied with a grin on his face.

Marui slowly blinked a few times. He hadn't expected the other to reply, let alone try to reply with something witty.

"That wasn't funny was it?"

Marui shook his head slowly. "Not really."

"Ah." The silver head placed his pencil down on the desk and rested his own head on his palms, similar to the posture that Marui was in, turning so that he was face to face with the red head.

"Name's Niou. Niou Masaharu. Yours?" He asked with a smile.

"Marui. Marui Bunta."

"I see."

"…"

"Well…" There was a slight pause. "Nice to meet you?"

"Ah. Likewise." Marui said.

There was silence after that, as both had nothing else to say to each other. They both turned away, breaking the eye contact and Marui faintly remembered hearing the lecturer's voice droning on and on in the background.

That was how they first met.


A/N: Read and review please

I'll update this, but the updates would be slow. Considering that I hadn't planned on writing this beforehand, I really don't know what would happen next. Also, my skill at writing romance is like...nonexistent (Same goes for humour - as you can see from Niou's reply to Marui's "'Sup").

So...we'll see. If I get ideas, and if I have time, I'll update.

Hope you liked it!