Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis or anything associated with it.

Kirihara couldn't believe it. After long, sought hours of extremely Spartan training, he was going to the library. Yes, the library. Of course, on normal days where he'd just head home to his cozy bed and snooze till next morning, Kirihara would be extremely prone to not do his work, but today was different. It's not like he wanted to go, to say the least, but because of his unbelievably persistent sempai he really wasn't left with any choice.

To put is simply, he was being forced to go.

Sure he was great at tennis, no doubt about that, but his schoolwork and behavior on the other hand were less to brag about, especially with the recent outcome of marks. So his team had apparently come to the conclusion that he needed more practice- at certain subjects – which thus began a series of events that made him realize, somewhat, of how important the subject of school was.

Kirihara was extremely surprised to find out what lengths his team be willing to go for his grades to go up; Yukimura was even willing to let him cut tennis practice time to squeeze in some studying time.

He sighed to himself as he walked down the street.

After all this, he really couldn't refuse.

"Eh, excuse me, where's the library?"

The woman stared at him as if he had asked some taboo question. "I beg your pardon, but did you just ask where the library is, young man?"

"Yeah, I thought it was somewhere around here…but I can't seem to find it," he admitted, scratching his head.

The woman gave him a once and over look to see if he was all right in the head. The woman shook her head, muttering to herself, "I see…you can't find it you say…" she trailed off, as Kirihara nodded.

She sighed and pointed right above where he was standing, "look there, young man. I'm sure you can find your way in I assume?" She questioned seriously.

Kirihara turned his head upward only to see the library sign dangling right above his head. His cheeks stained slightly red at the woman's remark, and understood why she seemed so confused by his question. He had been standing in front of the library the whole time.

"Thanks," he mumbled quietly, and walked inside as the woman nodded.

Once inside, Kirihara wasn't sure what he was exactly supposed to do. Frankly speaking, he hadn't actually been to a library before except for the one at his school. Not wanting to look more lost than he already was, Kirihara paced forward and grabbed a table.

He was glad he had chosen one located in the corner where he was surrounded by shelves and plants that were hardly visible to most. Kirihara sighed and slung off his bag, slumping into his seat a little as he looked out the window. He had one hour before he had to go home since the bus took around half an hour and sometimes even one whole hour to reach his stop.

He took out his books and set them on the table, opening a few to begin with. Then he took out his pencil and stared at the page and his book. What exactly was he supposed to do?

"Crap, I can't do this!" He whispered harshly, staring at the paper.

He needed some help.

He turned himself around, scanning the area of the upper library; nothing but old people or serious study folk. He lamely stood up, leaving his stuff scattered and walked down the stairs to the lower level. Kirihara thought the upper lever was concealing, but once he walked into the lower level, he realized how mistaken he was. The whole place was filled with rows, and rows of books with some computers in the corner.

He aimlessly walked around, through the isles of books and stopped dead in his tracks when he heard light laughter coming from the isle beside him. Curiously, Kirihara peeped through the shelve holes to see who it was.

A sudden chill of nostalgia struck him hard.

"What is she doing here?" Kirihara breathed out, in a slight state of shock.

There she was, standing there, laughing shamelessly, hand covering her mouth.

Ann Tachibana.

Kirihara was too curious for his own good. Why is she laughing? He thought, furrowing his eyebrows in contemplation. He moved closer to his right to find the cause of the laughter. Kirihara saw a person with dark red hair falling partly over the side of his face and realized that there was only one person with that type of hair.

Kamio.

He rolled his eyes knowingly. Of course, who else would it be, he thought.

He watched them a little longer since the two were clearly unaware that they were being watched. It seemed like forever, but shortly after, Kamio took his leave and before he did, he hesitantly reached out and gave Ann a light hug, which in response she blushed to lightly.

Kirihara watched the whole conversation in disdain and turned away to watch as Kamio left. Once he was gone, he swiftly turned her head around to find her, but she had left. He walked around to the isle she had been standing in, and saw a flick of light brown hair around the end of the isle. He quickly followed, making sure not to make any disruptive noises. Kirihara watched, jaws dropping as she walked behind the library counter and took a seat in the chair there. He was slightly taken aback when he read the plate on the counter. It read: Help/ information desk.

Since when does she work? And here…? He thought, walking out the isle.

Kirihara felt a sudden smugness.

Privileged even, is what he would call it, if she didn't piss him off to such an unbearable extent.

Knowing about her job and letting her get off this easy?

It just didn't fit right in his head.

Besides, it wasn't like he wouldn't be here often. The thought of coming to the library everyday was beginning to seem less tedious.

With that in mind, he arrogantly walked up to the help desk, where Ann was presently occupied with work on the computer. He smirked down at her working form, noticing how deeply submerged she was in it.

"Excuse me miss, I need some help finding a book? Do you think you could help me?"

Ann continued typing, not looking up, "of course sir, just give me a moment and I'll be right with you."

Kirihara raised his brow at her calmness and decided to make her well aware of his presence, "be right with me? You mean like how you were hugging that Kamio kid a few minutes ago?" He said, leaning on the front desk.

Ann's head snapped up at the name.

She knew that voice sounded familiar, "You!" She whispered, glaring up at him now.

Kirihara felt his heart bloat now that that he had here attention. "Me?" He mocked, looming over her desk area now.

She shook her head in annoyance, "Kirihara, what do you want?" Ann exasperated, clearly not content with the unexpected turn of events. It had been a while since she had seen him, and when she did see, all Ann really wanted to do was introduce her fist to his face.

"I want you-"

"What?" She asked angrily, but a light hue of pink was evident on her face. Kirihara felt even better, rejoicing over her blush. He wasn't exactly sure why, but seeing her in such a fretting state made him feel better.

Or worse, he mentally thought.

"I want you to help me," he said slowly, looking very amused now. Ann looked frazzled, not only because of his presences, but also since she had misinterpreted his meaning.

"R-right, what do you need help with?" She asked politely.

Kirihara smirked at her politeness, "your going to have to get out of that little box of yours if your going to help me," he marveled, pointing at the desk area.

By now her hands were clenched tightly around the desk edge, but she smiled anyhow, "of course, how silly of me," she said, getting up. Once she was out she glared at Kirihara, "what do you want?" she hissed again, so no one heard.

Kirihara tilted his head in amusement, "there are a few books I want, I was hoping you could recommend me some good ones…on world history," he added lamely.

She nodded remorsefully, as he followed her down the isles. Walking, he wondered why she hadn't screamed at him yet, or thrown insults at him yet as usual. He figured it had something to do with the library job, but whatever it was, it gave him complete advantage over her.

"Here we are, now good luck finding your stuff," she muttered, stalking away.

Kirihara quickly grabbed her wrist and pulled her back, "who said you could leave," he whispered to her.

"Now help me find the books I want," Kirihara demanded.

He was surprised when she didn't argue, but simply marched up to the shelves and turned around, her eyes still glaring holes through him.

"What kind of history book?" She asked, tapping her foot impatiently. Her plan wasn't to stick around for long; in fact, she wanted to leave him as soon as possible.

Kirihara stood quiet for a few moments. He had no idea why he had come here; he merely wanted to bug her and occupy time. "Eh…something on war," he stated, trying to maintain a look of normalcy

"You're going to have to be more specific," she retaliated coolly.

He stared aimlessly at the books above her head, " fine then, something world war 2," he replied. Kirihara pointed at a book just above her head, just high enough for her to reach.

"Okay," she said slowly, grabbing the book.

"That one too," he said, pointing to one on the far right corner; he couldn't even see the title of that. He walked behind her slowly, as she went to fetch another book.

"Oh, and that one. And that one too, and that one," he said, pointing on shelf higher each time until she couldn't reach the chosen book anymore.

Kirihara watched slyly, as she went up on her toes, attempting to grab the book down. "Need some help?" He asked, teasingly.

She turned around to give him a hard stare, "no thank you, I've got this," she added. Kirihara knew where this was going; either the bookcase was going to fall, she was going to fall or both were going to fall, and he would rather not have any one of those things happening.

"Let me get that." Ann watched the larger, more callous hand reach up a little higher than hers, to grab the book. Kirihara moved his hand painstakingly slow, so that when it he got the book, he was a mere few centimeters from her face. Ann stood still, feeling his body heat radiate and watched as his hand brush past her face.

"Here we are," he said, clicking his tongue.

Ann turned around and roughly shoved the seven books into his chest, "no, here you are," she shot back.

"Well now, if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do," she pointed, gesturing at the desk table. Kirihara realized that he had been invading her personal space, since she could barely move out. He moved his hands out of the way and took a few steps back. Without looking back, Ann walked over to the front desk, once again seating herself on the chair.

From her table, she shot him a murderous glare, which he read as 'get the hell out of the library if you don't have anything better to do.'

Kirihara chuckled, satisfied with the turn of events. He walked back upstairs to grab his bag.

Astonishingly, he was looking forward to returning the next day. He grinned, walking out of the library and down the street.

As he walked on the sidewalk, Kirihara tried to come up with more ways to pester the Ann Tachibana girl, and found each idea to be better than the last.

Kirihara grinned foolishly.

He caught the bus just in time and slept all the way home.

Author Note: This is a re-post of a story I posted a while back, but deleted because I didn't get much time or ideas to work on it. Getting back to it, I'm making changes and adding things as I've decided to finish this story. Thank you for reading and as always, reviews are greatly appreciated~